HR 7h Horgey the Harper
by slytherinsal
Summary: After spending time in the Harperweyr of High Reaches, Masterharper Robinton agrees to have Horgey return to the Harper Hall to confirm as Journeyman; and has a tough task for him. I do not own Pern but am grateful to borrow it. 11-20-25222 to 1-24- 2523
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Horgey was overwhelmed when L'gal and T'rin told him that they felt him ready to go and be confirmed as Journeyman at the Harper Hall; it was only a few months since he had been reinstated as an apprentice!

T'rin had talked very fast to Masterharper Robinton, showing him Horgey's own work and the work of some of his pupils, weyr children and the apprentices the youth was helping to catch up, like Caralara, now C'lara. Her instrument crafting had gone from non-existent to almost adequate under Horgey's guidance; and as she was not, as T'rin pointed out, the most promising material where woodworking was concerned, not yet the sharpest stick in the bundle, to bring HER on so well was the sign of a good teacher. C'lara was as talented as the majority of boys who eventually made it to Journeyman; she would make an adequate Harper one day even if she was not the brightest of her siblings.

Under such relentless onslaught of evidence, as the Masterharper described it, and T'rin's impassioned pleas on behalf of his one-time enemy, Master Robinton capitulated. Horgey was Turned nineteen, after all; if he were not to be made Journeyman soon, even allowing for the disabilities caused by his broken back he risked being looked at askance by others.

The Masterharper had every intention of using the accident to explain Horgey's slower progress, even though he had progressed better since it, under T'rin's tutelage! It would however give the boy a better chance among the youngsters who had either forgotten the one-time notorious bully or had never even known him when he was at the Harper Hall, having come since he had left under a cloud.

Though the accident had left Horgey incapacitated, initially totally paralysed from the waist down, he was gaining more feeling and movement every sevenday! He took Weyrhealer Calla's advice to make haste slowly, but his range of movement was increasing gradually. He could stand now in water in the bathing pool, providing he supported himself against the cavern wall, and could now get himself onto the necessary stool with a series of grabrails without needing the hoist the logicator design team had made for him. The only thing he had to take care of was injuring himself by knocking into furniture and not having a full enough range of feeling to notice; though knee braces and shin pads such as the hurley players wore helped both to hold his knees so that walking and standing were easier; and the pads to prevent too much damage. Such things T'rin explained to Master Robinton, so that a room could be fitted out for Horgey in the Harper Hall to accommodate his wheeled chair and enable him to have the dignity of dealing with his own hygiene: that also meant he would not have to take up the time of a trained Healer.

Robinton was delighted; and requested the presence of Masterhealer Oldive. The Masterhealer promptly demanded plans for the necessary modifications, and asked also for copies of plans of the hoist to use with his own patients.

"Why Master, if you want one, we'll let you have Horgey's now he doesn't need it any more" said T'rin. "We can build another if we have to; and the plans too, of course. His is complex enough to use himself; you may not always want that, but it's there if you do" he grinned "Like to keep some idiot dragonman from grumbling when he's in with a broken leg!"

Oldive smiled.

"Nothing will stop an injured dragonman grumbling; but it should at least reduce it!"

Horgey was to be accompanied by his personal drudge to fetch and carry for him, and give him some support; Danel was simple, for his mother had been a silly and flighty piece who had been afraid to call in Calla for her labour, in the superstitious belief that having a healer present meant that things would go wrong. As a result she grew weak in her protracted and fruitless attempts to deliver a breach birth and she was on the verge of death when Calla was finally alerted by someone who had heard the girl's moans. The breach baby that was stuck was the first of twins; and Calla managed to turn it and deliver it, quite dead. The mother expired quietly too; and Calla, noticing feeble movement still in her belly cut out the remaining twin, Danel. He grew into a good natured and willing child and young man but had suffered the lack of air he needed at birth and was consequently a little slow. He loved music; though he could never learn to reproduce much, and certainly could not learn the complexities of reading music. He had a good sense of rhythm, however, and enjoyed playing drums and tambourine with Horgey. He was almost as excited as Horgey himself to be visiting the Harper Hall!

Help too would be at hand – or claw – from the person of Horgey's little green firelizard, Cadenza, who fetched and carried willingly, and sometimes even managed to fetch what she was sent for!

Thus it was that Horgey found himself in a well-equipped ground floor room at the Harper Hall; T'lana had overseen the construction of the rails and handles wherever he would need them. It was a new single level cot, built against the cliff butting on to the Harper Hall infirmary, with an emergency door into it, where a window had been, as well as the main door to the outside. First one entered a small classroom- office, such as the Masters had in their upstairs suites, at the end furthest from the Harper Hall, with a shiny new black board and chalks, a double board, one side plain the other painted with staves already for quickly demonstrating notation, all on a frame that could be lowered for him then raised for ease for the pupils to see instead of being attached to the wall. There was a good big window in here, and the heavy shutters could be wound shut by him alone using a ratchet set low enough to reach with ease. Through a wide door that took his chair with ease was a necessary on one side, bathing tub on the other, so that pupils could use the necessary if under shutters without going into his private room. Instead of doors, there were lightweight folding screens that just pushed at a touch on small wheels for ease of opening and shutting! And further on, with the door to the infirmary, was his own room, with rails to assist him to get up and down alone. The window in here was smaller, but with the same shutter arrangement. There were two beds in here, his own with its rails and another for Danel, with a curtain between for privacy. It was as excellent an arrangement as any might have come up with!

And, best of all, he was wearing the knots of a journeyman – or at least, acting-Journeyman, with his senior apprentice tassels attached to indicate his unconfirmed and temporary status.

Master Robinton came to Horgey as a courtesy to his disability: and waved the youth down as Horgey struggled to rise.

"No need for that, you must be careful, young Horgey" the Masterharper said in his beautiful voice. His tone was much softer than the last time he had spoken to Horgey; for that had been when he had verbally excoriated the boy before him before expelling him!

"S-sir, I want to say 'thank you' – first for having given me a second chance, and – and even considering me as journeyman – and for this lovely place!" stuttered Horgey.

"I have heard good things of your progress; and of your attitude. Your work is adequate to pass as Journeyman, your instrument crafting somewhat above adequate. It is not, as I am sure you are aware, as good yet as T'rin's; but rarely are we lucky enough to have so talented a youth as T'rin as a Harper. And I do not doubt that I shall soon be able to describe your instrument crafting as 'excellent' with the facilities Master Jerint has to give you more instruction."

Horgey nodded fervently.

"T'rin is brilliant in so many fields" he agreed "And so good at imparting knowledge too!"

"I hear you're good at that yourself" said Robinton.

Horgey flushed with pleasure at the praise.

"I'm glad they – T'rin and L'gal – think so. I – I suppose I remember how hard it was when I came here first and try to be patient. I guess I might have done better if I'd had a teacher as patient as T'rin rather than….er. if I'd been taught by T'rin from the beginning" he flushed deeply, seeing the Masterharper frown slightly as he began to criticise Master Morshal.

"Quite so, Horgey. Discretion is part of being a Harper" said Robinton dryly. "But there are those who respond to a, er, gentler approach in training; and I am going to assign you teaching duties as well as permitting you to work on as Master Jerint's special student crafting instruments. I shall ease you in gently, for you've only been used to small classes up until now; at first I am going to assign you only one class. But it's a tough one."

Horgey gulped.

"Masterharper, I'd do anything to prove how grateful I am for a second chance" he said sincerely.

Robinton smiled in approval.

"There's my good lad….the difficulty will be in patience more than anything else; I'm assigning you to a group of paying female students of Rank. They have some basic training, but…" he closed his eyes "It will require the exercise of much tact."

"Oh dear" Horgey pulled a face. "Well, at least I know what basics Ranking women are supposed to have learned, because of what I'linne has told me. She was Lady Imbellinne, daughter of Lord Meron of Nabol" he explained "And she had a thorough grounding in the basics. Only she's talented in other ways too – she extrapolated the patterns in the drumbeats and applied logic….." he tailed off as the Masterharper gave a crack of laughter.

"You certainly sound like someone from High Reaches Weyr, lad! Be warned, though, that if she's the young lady with the almost impossibly involuted periods of speech that I have heard about from T'rin she probably absorbed more than many of her Rank. I'd hesitate to describe any of them as dim, but…" he let the sentence lie.

"But they're a bit like those Riders T'rin had to tell gently to keep their music as a hobby because he knew fine well they'd neither the talent nor the dedication to ever be better than amateurs?" Horgey finished for him.

Robinton smiled approval on him once more.

"You have it precisely" he said. "Be moderately gentle with them; they are not being pushed to achieve a level of competence required by a craft. But do not let them play you up either; I will back any discipline you set, for I'll not have any be insolent to one of my people who I choose to set over them as their teacher."

"THANK you sir!" Horgey was grateful. "And your tone and choice of words tell me I might expect insolence; I shall try to nip it in the bud. Would – would it be too much to ask if I might have an apprentice to help me? Then I'd have some legs with knowledge attached to them as it were. Danel is good to me, but…."

Robinton nodded quickly. He had spoken to Danel on the way I and assessed him as being in similar case to his simple son, Camo. Danel actually had more understanding and initiative than Camo, but essentially the Masterharper was correct.

"Had you anyone in mind?" he asked.

Horgey flushed again.

"As it happens, yes….but I need to talk to T'rin's old friends and make my apologies before I can ask such a favour. Only I needed to as you if I would be permitted to ask it" he said.

Robinton nodded.

"You'll use her Rank then to keep the girls toeing the line?"

Horgey looked surprised.

"You guessed sir? Why everything that they say about you being omniscient is true!"

Robinton laughed.

"It's part of my job to guess things like that; and now you're using your brain properly, I have every respect for its abilities and your good sense in thinking of such an apprentice. I think it is an excellent idea, and from more than one aspect. It will be a way of weaning her back into being a girl again before it becomes too obvious through her baggy tunics anyway; she's getting too old to be a boy any longer. I'll ask them all to call in and see you, shall I?"

"If you wouldn't mind, sir!" said Horgey, gratefully.

He would like to get that interview over with in any case!

Ferry and friends – Anslas, Kerill, Shoris, Duthi, Stev, Lisend and Kit, or more properly Kitiara – came rather warily into the room where their old enemy sat in his wood and wicker wheeled chair. Their respective firelizards' eyes whirled rather more in nervousness than distress, for the little creatures quickly picked up their Impressed friends' feelings through the mental link.

The friends saw a young man very different to the fat, porcine-eyed bully-boy they had known; Horgey had a big frame, and his shoulders were broad, his arms muscular from lifting his own weight around: but the fat was gone, leaving a fairly good looking face made pleasanter by the tentative smile. There were lines of pain on his forehead – Horgey lived with more pain as feeling and use returned, but considered it a fair trade and refused fellis – but the sneering lines from his nose had gone entirely.

Horgey moistened his lips and swallowed hard, caressing little green Cadenza as his nervousness communicated itself to her.

"Thanks for coming" he said. "I owe you people an apology for my behaviour. I had my reasons; but it's no excuse. And I'm sorry, I truly am. I wish I'd been able to break the mould of the bully and have had the chance to make friends with you back then; but that's all past, and I can't change it. Are you big enough to try to get to know me now, or would you just prefer that we never met, if that can be arranged?"

The group looked at each other, their assorted firelizards gazing as suspiciously at Cadenza as some of the boys were at the new Journeyman.

Ferry broke the silence.

"If T'rin calls you friend these days, then shards! I should think we could, too!" he said, advancing with his hand out.

Horgey grinned in pleasure, and laid his hand in the younger boy's with a firm grasp.

The grin broke the ice more than his carefully rehearsed – though perfectly sincere! – apology; and he was bombarded with questions about the Weyr, and T'rin and L'gal and all the High Reaches apprentices. He held up his hands, laughing.

"Best if I tell it Harper fashion from the beginning" he said "Both the hearsay from before I got there, and what I know for myself. Why don't you go fetch cushions from my bed and make yourselves comfortable by the fire? Danel will help."

"Danel good at helping" said Danel.

Being used to Camo, Danel's simplicity was no shock to the youngsters; and they greeted him cheerfully as they curled up for the story.

The youngsters drank in tales of T'rin and the logicators, Kitiara sighing mournfully to hear of the Journeyman's attachment to Allessa, the Harperweyr Headwoman, whose son he had also fostered; and Horgey said hastily,

"The trouble with T'rin is he's far too talented for love, I think. Allessa will get hurt, I'm afraid, because I don't personally believe that T'rin could ever love truly any woman who does not understand his extremely clever music. And that's few enough people. I certainly don't understand all its subtle nuances and I'm not sure anyone else at the Harperweyr does except L'gal perhaps! Master Domick would, of course, but few of us are given to be that talented."

T'rin had apprised Horgey of Kit's infatuation; and that Ferry had fancied her. Ferry at least appeared to have outgrown whatever brief and violent passion he had felt for the red-haired girl, treating her like a younger brother as he seemed to be; and perhaps Kit was growing out of T'rin, for she only sighed and smiled ruefully. Horgey suspected that unrequited love had become no more than a habit for her, and that she was as much in love with the idea of being in love as with T'rin himself.

The youth grinned to himself.

There was almost a song in that thought.

Ferry was the one to ask,

"You said you had reason to bully – do you mind telling us? If we could understand, then as older apprentices maybe we could help younger would-be bullies to break the mould, as you put it. Which would be good for them as well as for their victims."

Horgey hesitated: then nodded.

"I guess people who bully have grown up knowing nothing but violence" he said. "It…..bear with me, it's not going to be easy to tell. Some of it is pretty…..embarrassing."

Kit reached over and patted his hand.

"You got yourself over it; that's what matters" she said practically.

Horgey gave her a smile of gratitude; and began his tale. The shocked looks in the eyes of the youngsters over his earliest memory being his mother's death at the hands of his drunken father and their cries of sympathy spurred him on to tell of the drunken beatings and to confess in a low voice filled with tears of the humiliations of his uncle's sexual abuse.

"I started eating to make myself ugly to put him off, to make myself big, because he said I was such a pretty and so little boy" he said. "And later, well, food was just comforting. So I got fat. Really fat, as you remember. And when I got here, of course, I was bullied about that, called names, used as a punching bag. Then I found I could use that extra weight to literally lean on smaller boys, and I could push myself up by pushing others down."

Ferry nodded. They had all drawn closer to him in sympathy.

"Now we're older" Ferry said "We can understand better what happened to you."

"People do strange things to make themselves overcome poor self image" said Shoris. "You've Rayenn in the Weyr, haven't you now…."

"Yes, I know about R'enn's background" said Horgey, "And now he's a Bronze Rider nobody can fardle with his head."

Shoris grinned and gave a melodious seabred yodel. His voice had settled down after breaking and was still just as golden in its deeper register!

"Good kid! Elissa said he'd come through!" he approved. "BRONZE Rider, eh? That'll show his worm of a father!"

Horgey grinned.

"I heard that Z'kan and H'llon showed him a few things too – like a a graphic demonstration of what a water-wheel driven saw can do to a man's fundamental parts without killing him to drive his dragon _Between_. But that's for your private ears – we don't criticise any dragonrider in public."

"Discreet as a Harper, Journeyman!" grinned Ferry "Oh, wait – we ARE Harpers!"

There was a burst of hilarity over that sally!

Horgey glanced at Kit.

"Lady Kitiara, if you are able to forgive my behaviour towards you, I've a favour to ask" he said.

Kit blinked.

"Don't call me that, I've no Rank here" she said "-sir, I should add."

"I didn't mean to offend; you are right, we are as logicators together here, there is no rank so no need for 'sir' either. But I do hope I may ask a favour?"

"You can always ask" she said. "I can refuse, I take it, if it's a favour not an order?"

"Oh yes, certainly. I hope you will agree to it, however; the Masterharper has asked me to teach the paying Ranking girls - yes, exactly" he added dryly as she pulled a face "And I'd like an apprentice as my legs who has a decent base of knowledge. And if I also had a Ranking girl with fine gowns and apprentice knots, then my apprentice wouldn't have to take any crackdust no matter HOW spoiled some of those little – er, girls, might be."

Kitiara grinned wickedly.

"That might even be fun!" she said. "Putting down a bunch of mimsy-mannered, stuck up, wherry-headed rattle-tongued excuses for a waste of space!"

"You might say so, apprentice; I couldn't possibly comment" grinned Horgey.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Kitiara was early into the class, before the other girls; and Horgey appreciated it. She had donned a gown of rich Harper blue wool of the finest quality, part llama hair from the High Reaches, rich and soft and warm. Horgey found the winter weather mild compared to the bitter snow he had left behind at the Weyr; but nobody else here seemed to, and several people had looked at his light clothing and had shivered! Kit's gown was trimmed with figured velvet of the same colour, the high pile cut, the low pile uncut, and in the shape of lap harps between fanciful swags of leaves. It ran around the bottom of her skirt and formed the sleeves, heavy and full, puffed into a tight cuff of the same wool as the body of the gown. Over it she wore a cape of Eastern grizzly fur, a redder shade than the Western High Reaches grizzly that was generally black, and whose fur was most prized for bedding furs. Most apprentices wore cloaks to go to classes, since they often had to cross the courtyard to go to various classes.

"My new Gather gown; I was going to give it an outing and declare who I was at the Gather, but it may as well come out early" Kit grinned at him as she hung up her cloak. Horgey saw that she sported both Rank and apprentice knots on her shoulder.

"Thanks" he said; meaning both for the gown and the knots. She smiled. She looked quite stunning, Horgey thought, her gamine little face transformed by the smile into an elfin beauty!

"No trouble. I checked up on your prospective pupils for you; thought you'd like to know all I could find" she said.

"Now THAT's an added bonus" said Horgey, pleased. "Spill, my good brat."

She grinned.

"You picked up that one off T'rin" she commented cheerfully. "The good news is, I outrank them all – NONE form a Major Hold, though two of their Holds are rich enough to come close. Lesara is from Fairpastures Hold in Telgar, baby daughter of an ageing father, spoiled rotten and by the rumours I've heard she once had a firelizard that fled from her _Between_ for all time!" her own little blue, Flute, cheeped his own disapprobation as Kit's eyes snapped blue fire. Horgey stared in horror.

"Kit, how COULD anyone drive a firelizard _Between_? Even the old, unreconstructed me longed to love and be loved by the firelizard T'rin ended up with!"

Kitiara shrugged.

"I can't understand it; but I guess it might not be true anyway. It's only what's been said, and rumour runs on lying feet as the Masterharper says. It might just be worth watching her in case it is true."

Horgey nodded.

"Indeed! What else did you find?"

"There's another pretty wealthy one, from Sweetwater Hold in Igen, where I guess sweet water is worthy of note, 'cos from what I know the bits that aren't desert are swamp. Her name's Asrina; she has a firelizard. I gather that she's not that good at getting out of bed – her own, that is, it's idleness, not promiscuity. I went and wheedled Dunca a bit" she explained. "Though that might not mean she's entirely lazy; some of the boys need…..prodding ….in the morning" she grinned. "Nothing like squeezing a wet rag down their neck to get them moving."

Horgey chuckled.

"Yes; H'llon is the least lazy man I know, and he has trouble getting up to fight Thread early in the morning and he's pretty grouchy before breakfast at the best of times!"

"Even so!" grinned Kit. "There's two others with lizards, Tireena whose brown seems pretty nervous and I think that's because she's the one who screeches like a wherry-kite when she loses her rag; and then there's Dorasha, who has two firelizards. She's seabred from Hithe Hold in Fort, and I'd not mind betting hers are Impressed from wild clutches, 'cos she sails and I don't think her people have many marks to rub together, least of all to waste on firelizard eggs for a mere niece. The last girl is the youngest, Varalie, who has no firelizard; but she's only fifteen turns, just a kid."

"Your age, Kitiara my dear child."

"Yes, but then I have a profession; I feel heaps older than any of them, you know. It gives you a purpose and helps you grow up, I suppose. Varalie seems a nice kid, though, and Dorasha isn't bad I think. Varalie tried to join in games with the boys only that sour faced creature Lesara stepped all over her to make her make like a lady. She and Dorasha hang together because I think they're vaguely all right people and the others are just what you might expect of such – like the fosterlings with my sister that threw me in that ditch that T'rin rescued me from when you first met me."

"It seems a lifetime ago" said Horgey. "But apprentice! WHAT a way to craft a sentence – 'I think they're vaguely all right people'!"

Kit grinned unrepentantly.

"The meaning was clear enough, Journeyman" she said cheekily "And isn't that the reason for language?"

"I can see YOU'RE trouble already" said Horgey.

"Butter won't melt in my mouth in front of our – uh, your, pupils!" She said. "It's just….well, you know."

He nodded.

"Yes; we share the bond that T'rin has changed our lives for the better, me especially; and we both think he's the best there is. Hush, I hear the approach of a large giggle – er, gaggle – of girls!"

Kit chuckled at his deliberately mistaken collective noun!

It was a lovely sound, her chuckle, he thought; a distinct contrast to the irritating giggles of the girls now coming in, waiting to meet a new teaching Journeyman and ready to be coy about it.

The five Ranking girls came in in a cluster, a tall, sneering girl pushing to the front. Her knots had the fine plait of red, white and green; as Telgar utilised a plait rather than a twist of its own red, white and blue, this could be the girl from Fairpastures Hold who might or might not have driven a firelizard _Between_. Her peevish and cruel face – pretty enough if one ignored the expression – did nothing to dispel that shocking rumour. She looked taken aback to see the Journeyman seated in a wheeled chair, flanked by a girl whose Rank knots showed a Major Hold in the gold thread that twined round the complex knot of a cadet branch of the main family; and who wore apprentice knots besides.

A coltish, dark haired girl also stared at Kit's apprentice knots; but her look was envious and she sighed gently.

"Good morning, ladies" said Horgey. "I am Journeyman Horgey, and this is Apprentice Kitiara, who is my assistant."

"She's a LADY?" Lesara's rather nasal voice was incredulous. "How come a LADY is demeaning herself with an apprenticeship?"

Horgey felt his eyes narrow.

If apprenticeship was demeaning in the eyes of this chit, doubtless she despised all crafters and would give him but scant respect as a teacher – he must definitely watch HER!

"Apprentice Kitiara is of the line of Lord Groghe, who believes in the old adage 'Blood obligates' said Horgey, levelly "And feels therefore her Right and duty to be more in life than some useless ornament."

Lesara gasped, and two red spots of anger appeared on her face.

It did not improve her appearance.

"Journeyman, are you calling me a useless ornament?" she hissed.

He met her gaze.

"Only if you are calling craftsfolk something demeaning, my girl" he said. "Now take your place; I have better things to do than to bandy words with silly little girls. And I have yet to learn all your names and assess your ability so I may know how fast we may progress" he waved them all to their chairs, set out in a semi-circle in front of the row of desks, a music stand in front of each chair.

Horgey was glad of Kitiara's researches; Dorasha, the seabred girl with two firelizards seemed likely to be little if any trouble, for she looked eager; and the youngest girl, Varalie, had a frank and open face. Lesara was trouble, and still sulking over being called both a useless ornament and a silly little girl. Asrina looked as though she would soon have lines of discontent on her face and Tireena was overdressed with her hair piled up frivolously and looked as though she had never held anything as heavy as a thought between her heavily bejewelled ears. She was the one Kit had said had a hot temper; presumably she flared up quickly, for at least she did not look sullen. From the stories Horgey had heard of the popular Queenrider L'rilly – another granddaughter of Lord Groghe, proddy old beast – the Gold Riderhad once been shallow and distinctly snippy. Perhaps there was hope for Tireena yet!

Horgey called the class to order; and asked for scales and triples by way of general loosening and relaxation.

Apart from Dorasha, they did not seem to find it relaxing; and there were several glaring discords on the triples which only Dorasha managed on one breath in the approved manner.

"Kit, show them how it goes" Horgey growled. "Dorasha, you know what you are doing; you may sing with her, try to hold the note until I signal it off."

Kit's fine trained young voice soared up the octave in the triples; and held the note longer top and bottom than Dorasha could manage, cutting neatly as Horgey closed his hand.

"Thank you" said Horgey. "Dorasha, I'll speak to Master Shonagar: you need more specialist training to make the most of your voice. Asrina, your voice is quite pretty, it could be developed better if you put time and effort in on it. I can speak to Master Shonagar for you too."

Dorasha grinned, and murmured thanks; Asrina pulled a face.

"What for?" she whined. "We did a lesson already for that – er, for that Master" she modified her epithet as Horgey glared at her "It HURTS doing things the way old Shonagar wants!" she complained.

"MASTER Shonagar is trying to develop your lung capacity and the way you use them" said Horgey, sternly, not about to let a slight to a Master go. "It's like exercising any muscle; it hurts until it's fully trained, then everything comes easily."

She shrugged.

"I can sing any ballad to entertain my family" she said "Why should I put up with pain for so-called clever music? My parents think I have a very pretty voice and you said it was too. Why should I have to bellow like some fisherbrat?"

Horgey counted to ten.

"It's not about bellowing" he said carefully "But about control – soft as well as loud. Well, as you're not one who thinks louder is better, at least we shan't have to try to find a way to moderate you to not deafen your parents; if you're not prepared to give them your best efforts in return for their paying for your lessons, I suppose that is between you and them. If you change your mind tell me; otherwise suit yourself. The chance is there to improve on nature as you do by the wearing of fine gowns; but it's your voice. If you want to flaunt it naked and unadorned in public it's your business. Now we've loosened up let us move on to a little gitar playing."

If he hoped to shame Asrina into changing her mind he was, he feared, wasting his breath. She merely smirked. Horgey ignored her and handed out a sheet of music to each of the girls and to Kitiara; and picked up his own gitar.

The music was one of T'rin's simpler pieces called simply 'Flying'; it was a jaunty tune with simple chording in the key of D.

The girls stared aghast.

"But – we don't know it!" ventured Varalie.

Horgey blinked, nonplussed.

"Is that not the point of the Harper hall? To teach new music? Is it that you want to sing it through first without gitar to get the tune clearer in your heads before you add fingering?"

They looked at him blankly.

Dorasha raised a faltering hand.

"Dorasha?" he said.

"Please, Journeyman, we don't know how to sing a tune from music if we've not learned it" she said. "I – I think I can work out some of it, but…"

Horgey was horrified.

"I thought as Ranking girls you had been taught some basics! Have you then not been taught the values of the notes or their relationships in the scales?" he asked. "I am sorry, I did not know that your education had been so neglected!"

"We know such things perfectly!" snapped Lesara. "But that doesn't mean we can string all this lot together!"

"If you did indeed 'know all that perfectly'" said Horgey "You would be able to sight read perfectly adequately. Very well, since there are omissions from your education, that is what I am here to teach. Being able to sight read new music that comes to your Holds is one of the things that you are getting this education to be able to do; it is a valuable skill, even essential for the learning of new teaching ballads, as well as for the entertainment of your relatives and their guests."

"But the Hold Harper is there to play it until we know the tune" whined Asrina.

"And if he is ill, how nice for you not to have to rely on him" said Horgey, firmly, working on keeping his voice pleasant. "We'll start with the melody. Kitiara will sing it through while you follow on your sheets; you may point with your fingers if you wish."

Dorasha, Varalie and even Tireena made some effort; Lesara and Asrina looked frankly bored.

Horgey frowned at them.

"Why are you two girls here?" he asked.

"We've come to learn how to play musical instruments of course" said Lesara.

"And how do you expect to play music if you can't even seem to read a note and take no notice of the basics?" asked Horgey.

Lesara yawned artistically.

"WE are not grubby apprentices, Journeyman" she said in a bored tone. "We don't need such things; only to be shown the correct fingering and how to pick out tunes."

"I find your manner insolent, my girl, when you've not even bothered to listen to the explanation that to pick out tunes you must needs be able to read them" said Horgey. His voice had a touch of ice in it.

"Insolent? YOU are insolent, Journeyman, to contradict me. Be sure I'll speak to the Masterharper to get you disciplined, demoted or thrown out or some such if you continue to speak to me like that!" her voice was a definite hiss.

Horgey's little green firelizard Cadenza chattered angrily, the orange in her eyes echoing Horgey's own fury. The Journeyman had turned white with his anger. She had no authority to threaten that; but had not Master Robinton assured him that he would back any discipline, Horgey might well have worried how much power she did have!

"You're out of line, Lesara" said Kitiara. "I suggest you apologise NOW while the Journeyman is still shocked into disbelief that you should speak so disrespectfully."

"Apologise? Me? What for?" sneered Lesara.

"For being" said Horgey, levelly "A pert and disobedient brat whose father would have done well to have handed out discipline on the part it would have done most good. Very well, girl, if you are determined in your er'hrm contumely" he borrowed one of I'linne's polysyllables "You shall be on water rations for a sevenday. You do NOT speak to a Journeyman as you have done."

She jumped to her feet.

"How DARE you even suggest such a thing! You jumped up commoner, I'll…"

Kitiara interposed herself between the Ranking girl and Horgey.

"You'll do what? Strike a Journeyman – bad enough! – who's also a cripple and can't spank your overstuffed backside raw like you deserve? If you want to fight, Lesara, you can fight with me, and I'LL give you lumps!"

"KIT! That will do. There will be NO fighting!" said Horgey loudly. "Step back or you'll join her on water rations!"

Kitiara stepped back.

"I apologise, Journeyman" she said. "I forgot myself."

He nodded.

"Apology accepted. Pass me a sheet of paper."

Kitiara complied; and Horgey scrawled a note with a graphite stick to Silvina that the girl Lesara was to be on water rations for seven days. He attached it to Cadenza's collar and sent her images of Silvina. Cadenza piped happily, and disappeared.

"What was THAT about?" demanded Lesara.

Horgey gave her a long, flat stare.

"Can you manage to ask a question civilly?" he enquired.

"What?" she stared.

He shrugged.

"I'll take that as the negative. If you cannot ask a question with civility, I'm afraid I really cannot be bothered to answer it. Now take your seat, you silly creature and we'll add the chording. You've wasted enough of the lesson time of those who DO want to learn with your shenanigans; I'm sure they're very proud of you."

"Yes, do sit down and let us get on" said Varalie. "You're boring."

"Be quiet, you – CHILD!"

"Lesara" said Horgey "Are you trying to be sent home? I have far more power to make that happen to you than you do to me."

Something about Horgey's quiet demeanour – copied from R'gar when dealing with bumptious weyrlings – made her subside; and Horgey heaved a secret sigh of relief.

The girls were nervous of their gitars, fumbling even the simple chording; especially Dorasha, who seemed to have no idea even where her fingers were.

They struggled through the piece, Horgey watching Dorasha with a frown, for she had shown hitherto some reasonable talent and skill as well as a joy in music.

He turned to her.

"Dorasha" he said, quite gently.

The girl flushed and looked down.

"Not quite such Master's pet now, are you, you clumsy clot fisherwench?" he heard Lesara whisper.

"That's another two days water ration; nine, not seven, for spite" he said. "Kitiara, see Silvina and ask her to amend the note I sent; for I do not trust Lesara's sense of honour to report her own punishment."

Kitiara nodded; and Varalie gasped at the imputation of a lady's honour; but did not look surprised. Horgey turned back to Dorasha, who looked ready to burst into tears.

"Pick up the sheet of music" he said; dimly remembering another story he had heard in the Weyr.

The girl reached with her left hand.

"Do you write with your left hand?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Yes sir" her voice was almost inaudible.

"Don't cry, girl, it'll spoil your voice" he said firmly. "If you're left handed, it's no wonder you make like a fool with your gitar strung for a right handed person. Have you duties or lessons after this period? There's a half hour before the midday meal."

She shook her head.

"It's for us to primp in" volunteered Varalie.

"Ah? Well she looks sufficiently respectable without need to primp" said Horgey. "Kit, you'll be my chaperone; stay behind the others, Dorasha, and we'll string your gitar for your handedness, and you'll have to put in some time copying the chord boxes backward for your practising. I'll help you work them out to start with, and check over the ones you do yourself. I don't guarantee it will work; but it has to be worth a try. Now!" he addressed the rest as she stammered thanks "The rest of you can take this music with you and practise it in your own time; we'll open with it for our relexation exercise next lesson. Dismissed!"

The first terrible class was over!


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Fardling shards!" swore Kitiara when all but Dorasha had left. "How on all Pern did you keep your temper, Horgey – uh, Journeyman?" she amended hurriedly, glancing at Dorasha.

"Being crippled does build the patience" said Horgey dryly. "Besides, I've learned a lot – not just from our T'rin, but from R'gar too, you know, T'rin's father."

"You know dragonriders?" asked Dorasha, much awed, as he loosed the strings of her gitar.

"I'm from High Reaches Harperweyr" said Horgey. "I'm here to confirm my promotion to Journeyman; I'm hoping to return as their Journeyman instrumentcrafter when Master Robinton is fully satisfied he's seen all my skills in action. Speaking of which, this instrument is distinctly inferior" he added, quickly forestalling any further questions about the Weyr. "Where did you get it?"

"My uncle bought it for me when I asked to come here to learn music" she said. "The Hold Harper said it was adequate for my abilities. I – I hoped to be a real apprentice, but I'm so clumsy, I made a poor showing…"

"Let's see what working with your proper hand does" said Horgey. "I'll fumble about as awkwardly as you've been on an old practise instrument to work out the chords backwards for you for those you don't know yet; and if it does make a difference, then I'll speak to the Masterharper ; I'm a great believer in second chances."

Dorasha never knew how MUCH he was a believer in second chances!

"THANK you, Journeyman!" she said, eyes sparkling.

"I make you no promise that it will work; I only tell you that it has made a difference to at least one other person, a Queenrider, Kitiara's cousin L'rilly; who learned to use a flamethrower left handed and promptly got the hang of something that had long eluded her. Did not your Hold Harper suggest it?"

She shook her head.

"He just showed me what he said was the proper way" she said "I never knew you could string it to be left handed."

"Ah well, some people have less flexibility and imagination than others" said Horgey, pacifically. "If it works, with luck we've caught you before you've picked up too many bad habits. There, try that" as he rapidly tuned the strings by ear.

Tentatively Dorasha took the instrument and helt the neck in her right hand.

"It feels less awkward already" she said. Horgey nodded and placed her fingers on the chord of G.

"How does that feel?"

"Easier…..still a little stretched but I can do it. So A would be…here?" she made the change with but a moment's hesitation.

He nodded.

"Well done, that's right! And you changed quite fluently and fast, despite having to work it out. Practise those two, and D, and you'll cover most of the song."

Dorasha nodded, grinning all over her face.

"So sucks to Lesara!" she said happily.

"I think I was briefly affected with a distressing case of deafness for a moment" said Horgey. "Run along girl, or you'll be late for dinner!" as Dorasha lingered, making chord changes. She grinned at him and ran off, all legs.

"The probable best of a dubious bunch" commented Kit. "I'll not mind HER working beside me as a regular apprentice; I'd even have her in my dorm."

Horgey nodded.

"Tireena reminds me of what they say L'rilly was like once" he commented. "Maybe there's hope for her….if you can draw that girl Varalie into your group she'll have more fun and it'll help her too. Asrina seems to think all the effort of learning should come from the teacher; and if I get through a month without wanting to strangle Lesara I wager I'd take wings and fly myself because I'll be as magnificent as a dragon! I believe I'll treat Master Morshal to a bottle of Benden Red; I appreciate more now what he goes through!"

Kitiara laughed.

"But you laugh about it afterwards and don't let yourself get soured, like he has."

Horgey shrugged.

"Poor fellow has no sense of humour; and besides, would I still manage to laugh in the several hundred turns he's been teaching?"

She gave her gurgle of mirth.

"I thought Harpers weren't supposed to make gross exaggeration?"

He grinned back at her.

"I wager it feels like several hundred turns to him" he said. "It surely did to me when I was an apprentice under him!"

She rolled her eyes.

"I agree….but for T'rin getting us promoted out of his class….poor you, it can't have helped your disposition any!"

"Water under the bridge" he said. "Were you going to take me to eat, by the way, or were you planning on leaving me here to starve?"

Kitiara laughed apology and wheeled him over to the main hall to eat.

The Ranking girls, eating at their own table near the fireplace, were subdued; and Lesara was holding forth about the cheek of low-born servants – for were not those hired to teach them no more than servants – being allowed to interfere with her eating habits!

Horgey heard Silvina's crisp voice cut across the loud complaints.

"If you don't like the arrangements here my girl, you can leave any time you like; and in my opinion the sooner the better. Now shut up and put up; or go pack your things. Your choice. And if I catch any of you other girls giving her of your food, you'll be on water rations too."

"What a BABY!" rose the clear treble of a junior apprentice, an angelic looking boy with golden curls. "I bet she must be nearly twenty turns and making a fuss about water rations. Why I've been on water rations HEAPS of times and I don't whine like a toddler!"

Horgey caught Kitiara's eye and grinned.

"And every time deserved I bet" he said "He looks far too innocent to be anything but trouble!"

"Apprentice Vaek" she supplied the child's name. "Looks like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth and the worst imp since the fabled Piemur!"

"I can believe it" said Horgey "I was thinking just how sweet and innocent T'rin's foster sister Sagarra manages to look. The lad's quite right though; she's a disgrace to humanity, never mind the Blood."

Kit chuckled wickedly.

"Can I tell her that? Without saying I got it from you?"

"I can't stop you now, can I, if you leave me with the other Journeymen and you happen to go sit with the girls?" said Horgey, grinning.

She flashed him a grin and did as he suggested!

Lesara looked ready to explode as Kit leaned over her on her way to a chair and murmured something!

It made Horgey feel better in some measure! Teaching the Ranking girls was the most exhausting thing he had ever done in his life – especially the effort of mastering his temper!

Kitiara sat beside Varalie and winked at the youngest girl as Lesara spluttered over the apprentice's comment about her being a disgrace!

"When did you come here, Kitiara?" asked Varalie, ignoring the older girl's histrionics.

"Let me see…some three turns ago" said Kitiara "I'm hoping to be made senior soon."

"Three TURNS? Well, no wonder you know so much more than us….I guess that makes me feel a bit better and less inferior" said Varalie. "You started at almost the same age as boy apprentices then?"

Kitiara nodded.

"And I never bothered to make an issue of my Rank, but just concentrated on fitting in with the boys. And had a sight more fun of it than sitting on my dignity and waving my Father's Rank about" she said bluntly. "I was a bit stuck up at first until I discovered that the senior apprentice of our bunch had a father far more worthy of boasting about than mine – not that he did. Boast, I mean."

"How's that? Who's his father?"

"His father is a Bronze Rider. And now T'rin himself is Impressed – fortunately he made Journeyman first – and the rest of us are fardling well proud of him" added Kitiara. "And after Journeyman Horgey's accident he went home to the Weyr to be with his foster brother" she reflected that she would have to tell Horgey that she had designated him T'rin's foster brother, and write too to the Blue Rider to warn him! "But now he's well enough to come back to us and confirm his status."

"How did he come to be crippled?" Tireena tactlessly asked.

Kitiara tapped her nose.

"Harper business…he and T'rin were out of the Harper hall together and it's not done to ask about such missions. Not when renegades and evil doers are involved" she said in a mysteriously lowered voice.

That was thrilling to most of the girls!

It was no real lie direct; and Master Robinton had made it clear to her and her friends that Horgey was to have a new start; and implying that he was injured on Harper business surely could do no harm, for to stick as close to the truth as possible was by far and away the easiest way to misdirect.

"Has he missed much training?" asked Dorasha sympathetically.

"Quite a lot, yes" said Kit. "He was injured not long after I joined, and he only left the Healer Hall a few months ago to go to the Harperweyr, where it would be less frenetic than life here…he's been catching up with his foster brother, Blue Rider Journeyman T'rin and acting-Master Bronze Rider L'gal, the Weyrharpers. And I should think we're as proud of our old colleague doing so well despite his injuries as we are of T'rin for doing well AND Impressing too. So, girls, I won't take any crackdust from anyone about him being crippled or about you cheeking him: and I've been fighting with boy apprentices any time the last three turns and I can lick any two of you together; and take my water rations if I'm caught without making like I'm a baby."

"How crude!" said Asrina.

"Yup" said Kitiara, cheerfully. "Blunt and crude is maybe the only way to get through hides like whers that some of you tunnel snakes wear. And for very little reason at that; you're none of you of the Blood. I suppose that's why none of you have any real breeding…..you've nothing to boast about in your bloodline so you feel you need to make a lot of having some minor position in some table sized Hold nobody's ever heard of."

Lesara gaped in speechless anger; Asrina looked outraged; Tireena opened her mouth angrily and shut it again with a snap and Dorasha gave a whoop of laughter.

"How true, my dear!" she said. "We have to sit on our position and polish our dignity to pretend to ourselves that we matter a shard in the grand scheme of things!"

"Blood traitor!" hissed Lesara.

"That's you, actually, from what Kitiara said when she joined us at the table" said Dorasha. "I think Journeyman Horgey is a good teacher and a kind, considerate, thoughtful one."

"Watch it, Dorasha – APPRENTICE Kitiara is already in his furs by the way she praises him, because she couldn't get into the Blue Rider's; she'll not let you join her" sneered Lesara.

Kit went white with rage.

"Never heard the tale of a man who'd never seen a runnerbeast but knew he was clever enough to ride one?" she asked, conversationally. "He got stamped on all over by the hooves and dunged upon after he fell off. And spreading slander comes back to haunt in the self same way, you ridiculous creature."

Calling Lesara a ridiculous creature did more to scotch the girl's suggestion than simple denials!

"Quite" said Dorasha, coldly; for she had no intention of even flirting with Horgey and found Lesara's crude suggestion most offensive. She was far more interested in getting a proper apprenticeship, and had no intention of wasting her time or his in such pursuits!

The girls went their separate ways after the meal; and Kitiara felt a light hand on her shoulder. She looked round at the tall figure of the Masterharper; and flushed.

"Unofficially, young Kit" he said quietly "That was, on the whole, well done!"

"Th-thank you sir!" she stammered. "You overheard?"

He grinned.

"I'm notorious for overhearing things apprentices want to keep quiet" he said "And when you get excited your voice is beautifully trained and VERY carrying. They are merely loud. TRY not to fight any of them, please; I don't want to have to discipline you; and I would, you know. I'm sure you can be FAR more innovative than that!"

Kitiara chuckled.

"Especially if Dorasha and Varalie will stand my friends" she said cheerfully. "Did – did I do right about the amended history of Horgey?"

"Perfectly" he said. "I like the story a lot; and I liked the way you handled being so furtive about telling it. Just make sure he knows it, hmm? I don't know that he was listening as closely as I was."

She grinned.

"Yessir!" she said!

The Masterharper made sure to speak to Horgey too.

"How did it go?" he asked kindly.

Horgey pulled a face.

"Like a purgative through a tail-thickened dragonet" he said graphically. "I'm afraid I may have let you down – I had to put one girl on water rations. But she denigrated the whole craft with her remarks; it was more than just insolence to me. I extended the time for a spiteful comment to another girl."

The Masterharper nodded.

"I back you fully" he said "And well that you had disciplined her for cheek to you even without cheek to Harpers as a whole. Somehow I fancy Lesara will be leaving us before too long; some things are not to be born. Do your best with her though; and if you make any breakthrough, all well and good. It's not as though they were regular apprentices."

"But sir, the fees that they pay help to subsidise the poorer apprentices, don't they?" said Horgey. "I'd hate to lose you marks….I threatened to have her sent home, but I'll obviously try not to…"

"Good grief, have you learned so much excess of responsibility from that boy T'rin that you worry about the Harper Hall income?" Robinton was startled. "You worry about your teaching and discipline; they pay me to worry about balancing the books. And one who makes loud and indelicate remarks impugning our people are such as I am sure we can do without. There are plenty where the likes of her come from; we always have girls longing to learn some small skill at music. Some of them even achieve some measure of skill" he added dryly.

"Sir" blurted Horgey "You've shown me you believe in second chances….some idiot failed to check that Dorasha was left handed when he gave to her the initial lessons so when she applied for an apprenticeship, naturally she came across as clumsy…..if I can get her more skilful doing everything backwards, may she try again?"

Robinton regarded him thoughtfully.

"I'd be a hypocrite to refuse you" he said. "If you feel she merits it I'll have her tested again. Indeed, I'll do it myself. Don't rush her to it; prepare her well and get her confident."

Horgey's face lit up.

"Certainly, sir!" he agreed with alacrity. "I don't think it will take long, for she's a quick enough ear – even if she hasn't been prepared properly for apprenticeship by her Hold harper."

"Hmm" said Robinton. "For your ears only, her Hold Harper is a hidebound old fool suited well enough to sing shanties with fishermen and teach the basic teaching ballads. He'd not prepare her properly because she's a girl; he only put her forward because her uncle, the Holder, insisted. HE's reasonably UNhidebound for a fishcrafter, an irony if you like it being that way round; though you never heard it from me."

Horgey grinned.

"Heard what, sir?" he said innocently. He had heard tales of Lyseder's family's Hold and its scattering across Pern under the direction of Lord Oterel and Masterharper Robinton himself; and everyone knew Menolly's tale. Fish Holders were NOTORIOUS for being hidebound.

Robinton grinned back, and went on,

"I'd not go so far as to say the Hold Harper deliberately sabotaged her chances by teaching her without reference to her handedness; but I imagine he'd justify not doing anything about it by putting it down to the perversity of womankind."

Horgey blinked.

"But as many men are left handed as women; T'lana calculates it to as much as fifteen in every hundred."

"You've obviously never had to explain logic to a confirmed bigot" said the Masterharper dryly. "Any strongly held belief based on prejudice rather than demonstrable fact is stubbornly held even when it is shown to be palpably incorrect. It is a flaw of human nature I fear; you've not come across it with your logicators?"

Horgey shook his head.

"I recognise the truth of your words for things I've heard though" he said. "I'll try to remember – and pass that succinct summation back to the logicators, if I may, sir."

"Feel free. They do many a task traditionally that of the Harpers; but with dragons at their beck and call perhaps manage some of them even better. I believe co-operation with the logicators is far better than childish rivalry. And I like the idea of Harper influence and training to help them do their self-imposed duties better. However much Domick may grumble at times about overly clever little weyrwomen!" he grinned. "You're doing fine, so far, my boy; now rest before you report to work with Master Jerint, you look worn down."

Horgey nodded and went for a much needed lie down!


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Horgey enjoyed the session working with Master Jerint. T'rin was a fine instrument crafter and had brought him on a lot; and H'llon had helped him with some of the woodcrafting aspects too. But T'rin was also in many ways an instinctive worker, though he knew the theory well enough; but some of the things he did were from sheer feel, and he could not always explain to Horgey why some slight change had lifted an instrument from good to excellent. Jerint was delighted to find Horgey well versed in the mathematical relationships regarding string length and thickness and the placement of holes in wind instruments; but was also able to give the young man several practical pointers in crafting more complex instruments than he had been able to do with T'rin!

"I really enjoy making instruments, Master Jerint" said Horgey, happily.

"That is apparent from the few I have already stamped for sale" said the Master Instrumentcrafter. "You'd not skimped, even on simple drums and tambourines, but made sure to get the best sound out of them,"

"Well…yes" said Horgey. "If people are going to buy them to play, they'll want good tone…oh, I see" he flushed. "Before I only did as much as I had to and hoped to get marks for it, because I wasn't thinking through about people wanting to have good instruments…and I suppose too I didn't really understand what I was doing, nor yet why, or how to improve; and I was too busy being a sad bully to listen."

Jerint started.

"My dear boy! You've a remarkable ability in self honesty, young Horgey!" He said. "Perhaps it's why you've become a quite respectable instrument crafter; because you want your instruments to sound true and to be true to themselves too."

Horgey blinked.

"I'd not thought of it like that" he said "But I'd not say you're not right at that, sir. I did a lot of thinking flat on my back, and in such a situation there's no way you can hide from yourself. And if you don't like what you find in yourself, then you have to change. Because if YOU don't like you, who else will? And you have to find the real you inside and only by utter truth can you do that."

Jerint nodded.

"T'rin has done wonders with you" he said "But after hearing that, I'd confirm my suspicions that Horgey has also done wonders with Horgey. The Harper Hall failed you initially my boy; we'll try not to fail you now you've found yourself."

"Thank you very much, sir" said Horgey, touched!

Horgey used his time with Master Jerint to start to prepare some really good instruments for his own use; a larger lap harp than the one he was currently using and with a full chromatic scale; and a twelve-stringed gitar that would require complex and demanding fingering but would produce as much fullness of tone as a really good harp. He appreciated the opportunity to use a wider range of tools than he had available at the Weyr, and to learn how to prepare materials from scratch, like hides from uncured hide. It was widely rumoured that Master Jerint could look at a herdbeast and predict what sound the hide would make on a drum; and Horgey did not discount the rumour. Being bred of a small Hold he had some idea of assessing how good a hide on a beast would be before the animal was slaughtered, and could see that experience making drums would lead to the next step of assessment. Horgey was also pleased to have a wider range of materials at his command; H'llon provided all the wood the Harperweyr needed, and more for each apprentice than the Harper Hall itself was used to; but the metalworking tools in Master Jerint's vast crafthall meant that Horgey could start work on a big metal xylophone as an accompaniment instrument to replace or supplement the wooden one that was currently Kullana's favourite instrument.

He could learn too the best way to season wood for instruments, and make more specific requests of H'llon.

Horgey was certain that he was going to enjoy himself – apart from his teaching duties!

The next lesson with the Ranking girls started off a bit better.

Kitiara had heard that Lesara had gone to complain to the Masterharper himself and received a similar message to the one she had received from Silvina along the lines, though less bluntly put, of 'shut up and put up or ship out'.

Horgey appreciated Kit's ability to 'just hear' things. She and the boys had a VERY efficient information gathering network.

Thus, Lesara was sulky, but at least less outspoken; if she despised Harpers in general or Horgey in particular as a commoner who was little more than a music-drudge then she kept her opinions to herself. If looks could have killed, however, her smouldering glares would have reduced him to the same state Thread was reduced to by Agenothree! Horgey elected to ignore such fulminating looks; though he did frown at a bruise on Varalie's arm that showed when she reached forward to adjust her music on the stand.

"How did you get that bruise, Varalie?" he asked.

The look the girl shot at Lesara was quick, but frightened

"Oh….er, I don't know, I must have bumped into something" the youngest girl said.

"It looks to me" said Horgey, dryly, "As though you bumped into a bully. It may, or may not, help you to know that bullies are miserable creatures who can only feel good by making others feel bad. They have no friends – no TRUE friends – and they are quite the unhappiest creatures alive. They are to be pitied as weak, stupid, despicable people who are inadequates. Does that help any?"

Varalie had brightened and was starting to grin.

"Yes, Journeyman, thank you!" she said.

Lesara was livid.

She could scarcely however dispute being called down so, without admitting to the bullying; and what hurt worst was Horgey's summation that she was to be pitied! She fumed gently. Varalie knew that this probably meant more pain to come; but pain was easier to bear when you had a weapon to taunt your tormentor with. Varalie knew she could fight the urge to cry out; pitying Lesara out loud should make her stop!

The song 'Flying' was played to open the lesson with more or less – mostly less – competence. Dorasha had managed to work out the fourth chord used in it, the Em chord and played if not with panache at least with a creditable accuracy for just two days practice since the last lesson. Horgey nodded.

"Much improved, Dorasha. Switching you around to take advantage of your handedness has worked very well; you must try it with other instruments you feel clumsy on. Tireena, that was also better, but I wish you'd concentrate a bit more on the placement of your fingers than that of your legs. I'm not interested in the dubious sexual charms of a bunch of scrubby brats, and the apprentice boys aren't here to look."

Tireena blushed, and shuffled, and tried to look as though she hadn't been trying to make a good impression with her charms. Horgey went on, "Varalie, you've got the basics quite well, but you would do better if you didn't try to rush it, you're too busy thinking about the next chord to come, you let your fingers drift for a sour thrumming noise that does you no favours. If you can't move quickly from one chord to the next on time, just practise doing that on your own time, until you can. I would rather you missed a beat with your right hand to get your left properly positioned than that you gave me noises like farting firelizards."

Varalie too flushed, but giggled at the description; Horgey's tone was not unkind. He sighed, and went on.

"Asrina, you are the sloppiest chord changer I have ever seen, not excluding the drunken Brown Rider who was trying to kiss three lower cavern wenches as well as serenading them. Lesara: you have fairly accurate chording, if you would work on the timing of your strumming you would do yourself a big favour. You right had is completely off beat. If you need help because your sense of rhythm is poor, watch my hand and count if need be without strumming until you have the feel of it."

Lesara just scowled! The idea that anyone should criticise anything she did was anathema to her; her father thought she was wonderful, and she was amazed these ignorant commoners dared to disagree! Horgey could see all this in her face; and he reflected that she made Carlinna - in the days before Master Artist Agatta had broken through the girl's exaggerated sense of self worth – look relatively self critical.

Horgey sighed and continued the critique.

"Very well; none of you breathed in the right places to sing because you were all concentrating on your fingering; and Dorasha, not breathing at all just because you have good lungs is NOT a substitute for breathing correctly. We'll take some red ink and mark the breathing on this, now, ladies; then sing it without accompaniment to get you breathing. Master Shonagar will unravel my guts and use them to hang me with if I let you develop bad habits."

This sally got a giggle from most of the girls, even Asrina, and left them relaxed enough to make a reasonable second attempt with breathing.

Horgey had brought some more music to pass out for the girls to examine with a view to developing their sight reading skills; and while they looked through it he drummed very rapidly to Kitiara,

**DDDD **spend a couple of nights in Dunca's cot for me and find out what goes on. If Lesara is intimidating the others she'll have to go.**DDDD**

Mmuch of this being in the old style of spelling words letter by letter he thought it doubtful even the best educated girls would pick it up!

Kitiara replied,

**DDDD** I'll see what I can do** DDDD**

Horgey had every faith in the girl to find out EXACTLY what was going on!

Lesara was too clever to actually bully anyone while Kitiara was sleeping in Dunca's cot – to mixed feelings of THAT worthy. Kit did not mind a room with a window, as most girls did; and her parentage appealed to Dunca's snobbery. On the other hand the idea of the girl being a full apprentice like 'that awful Menolly girl' did not please Dunca one little bit!

The prudishness of the girls irritated Kit.

The boys had at first given her the courtesy of using the bathing room first; but after several sessions of skinny dipping in the river with them she had quite given up such excesses of modesty, especially as they treated her just like another boy. She had recently taken to bathing with her back to them, for her mammary development embarrassed her; but she saw no reason to worry about nudity in front of other girls, and thought Dunca's shriek of horror downright childish.

She said so.

"Anyone would think you had mixed sex here" she said in scorn "None of us has anything the rest don't, you know; we're all built to the same specifications."

"See?" said Dorasha "If it's good enough for a granddaughter of Lord Groghe to strip without embarrassment, you lot can stop getting at me!"

Seaholders tended to be less nice about such things at the best of times; and Kit suspected that Dunca had made poisonous remarks concerning civilised living and back of beyond sea Holds. The woman was quite unfit, in Kitiara's opinion, to have care of young girls; her values were all cockeyed.

Kitiara had hoped to use communal bathing to look for bruises normally hidden by clothing; but as most of the girls eschewed public nudity, dressing and undressing inside a drying cloth and wriggling from it into the water, she was out of luck. True, Dorasha had a bruise on her arm; but it looked as though nobody had got very far with the finer points of a Bitran Burn; having two firelizards as partisan protectors tended to be a deterrent to bullies who had none!

Dunca loathed firelizards; but had to put up with them as popular pets of the Ranking. It gave Kitiara great satisfaction to arrange with her apprentice friends for their assorted firelizards to pop _Between_ in rotation, so any time Dunca looked round she had a different coloured firelizard on her shoulder, and sometimes more than one. Kit was of the opinion that their firelizards considered all the apprentices to be part of their fair too, and they certainly happily worked in common for any one of the boys and her as well as their more special relationship with the one to whom they looked.

Dunca was soon completely confused and upset and stayed well away from Kitiara, learning to refrain from any snide comments with remarkable alacrity!

Besides Lesara, the only girl who did not have a firelizard was Varalie; and that, in addition to her being the youngest, must be why Lesara was picking on her. And Dunca would do nothing, even if the old fool saw anything, because Lesara was the highest Ranking of the girls and could do nothing wrong in Dunca's eyes. The girl poured out sugared poison to put the other girls down, especially poor Varalie, who came in for spurious sympathy over her relatively plain gowns of less rich materials than the wealthier girls wore, often carefully mended.

Kitiara murmured that if she was as clever with a needle as Varalie plainly was, she'd be prouder of that than having to walk around in a sleeping robe because she wanted to hide what must be a truly bad figure – a reference to the loose garb of the Igen region, and the long, quilted over-robe that Lesara wore to try to keep warm, evening garb for hot Igen. She could bitch as well as Lesara if she had to. But she saw no more than general unkindness.

Kitiara therefore had to admit something of failure to Horgey.

"And please don't ask me to stay in that miserable place any longer" she begged "The bitching of those girls will send me _Between_ at this rate!"

He grinned apologetically.

"Sorry, Kit" he said "Perhaps I shouldn't have asked it of you. But you've not failed, for you've picked up a lot of background; and that it's Varalie who's most vulnerable for her lack of firelizard, as well as being poorer and younger. Could you see your way to asking the boys if some of your firelizards to keep an eye out for her? I know weyrlings have combined forces and pooled lizards before against bullies amongst candidates; and I hesitate to use Cadenza, as I hesitate to ask the Masterharper to take her out of Dunca's cot entirely, it smacks of either favouritism or making yet another difference to bully the kid about. And she's not got quite the talent to make a full apprentice, or I'd suggest that. As a boy she might make it, but there is prejudice…."

"And without making her a full apprentice the Masterharper can scarcely find an excuse to heave her out anyway, unless I was living at home and she fostered with me; and I'm not prepared to jeopardise my profession when there's other ways round it" said Kit. "I'll certainly talk to the boys; their lizards have been enjoying irritating Dunca. Oops, you didn't hear that…yes, you can't have Cadenza do it, horrid things would be said, not least about you spying on her in private through your firelizard's eyes….not quite nice."

He flushed.

"That aspect hadn't occurred to me….what horrid creatures those girls are!"

Kitiara laughed.

"Aren't you the sweet and innocent one, Journeyman! If there's any improper connotation that can be put on anything, the prurient minds of the adolescent girl with too much leisure and too little common sense will find the worst possible slant to it!"

Cadenza crooned for attention and Horgey stroked her headknob. The little creature knew her name well enough; and if she was being mentioned she should also be properly fussed!

A day or so later, Lesara sported a scratch on her face that looked as though it came from a firelizard claw; and Varalie was grinning broadly.

At least, Horgey reflected, his pupils could all be protected so physical fear would not inhibit their performance!

The third lesson with the girls would coincide with Threadfall; and the Masterharper had decreed that they could be battened down as well doing a lesson as in Dunca's cot, and the better for having something to take their minds of it.

"If they have minds to distract" Kit muttered just loud enough for Horgey to hear.

The female apprentice arrived for the lesson in trews and tunic with heavy wher hides in hand.

"I usually walk sweep, Journeyman, may I?" she asked.

Asrina gave a little shriek.

"Oh Kitiara, how can you?"

"On my feet, usually" said Kit with sarcastic literalness. "Fardles take it, if the Blood won't walk sweep, how can we ask the commons to do so? Blood obligates! Grandfather ALWAYS walks sweep. We have a partnership with dragonriders, to deal with any stray Thread the dragons miss, and sear any burrows before they take hold."

Several of the girls were actually trembling violently, glancing nervously at the shutters though the Thread siren had not even sounded yet.

Horgey remembered that such reactions were common when he was a child in their small Hold. Since then he had lived Holdless and then in the Weyr, where even quite small children went out with Agenothree and were trained to use flamethrowers as soon as they were big enough to lift them conveniently. Horgey had grown more or less accustomed to seeing Thread. He would not describe himself as indifferent to it – nobody ever was – but there were things that scared him more. His uncle, for example; or, worse, being friendless again.

"Anyone else want to walk sweep with Kit?" he asked. "No?"

"I – I'd like to try, but I'm clumsy with a flamethrower too" said Dorasha.

"Ah, of course, like L'rilly. We'll see that you're taught to use it left handed; L'rilly and T'lana reckon that a right and left hander working together can cover far better than two of the same handedness" said Horgey "And judging by the way they clear Thread side by side on their Queens I'd be inclined to believe that they're right. "Give that a miss this time, then, better to learn such things under safe supervision. No-one else? All right let's get on."

"I – I'll go" said Varalie suddenly, pushing back her chair with a scrape that made Asrina jump and shake. "You'll help me, right, Kitiara?" she was plainly scared; but wanted to impress Kit – and do something that terrified Lesara!

"Sure" said Kit. "We'll fit you up with Agenothree if you're not flamethrower trained; I don't want you scorching me. Flute does that often enough when he gets overexcited!"

Flute was chittering anticipation on her shoulder, scolding away, his eyes whirling angrily orange as he awaited Thread.

Once the siren sounded, Asrina clung to Lesara, moaning gently. Lesara was in scarcely better state; and Tireena hunched up, gazing fearfully at the shutters. Even Dorasha shuddered.

"Come on girls, let's have a good sing to drive away gloomy thoughts!" suggested Horgey.

"How CAN you, Journeyman?" wailed Asrina. "It's OUT there!"

"Exactly" said Horgey crisply. "It's OUT – operative word – there. Not in here. The shutters are good, brand new even. The roof is good slate. If it had got in here you'd have some excuse for behaving like a bunch of worry-wherries. But it is not; and you do not. We are safe inside. The dragons and their riders are out there doing their job, facing Thread up close and personal. THEY have a right to be scared; and I know that many of them are. But they do what they do regardless, which is why they are the bravest. Also the most insane; but it's as well somebody is that insane. Now get out your music and stop being so childish."

"Sir, aren't you afraid of Thread?" asked Tireena.

He gazed at her.

"Do I look stupid? Of COURSE I'm afraid of Thread. Do I let it interfere with my life? No, of course I don't. It's not going to win by making me act scared. But maybe it helps having seen it close to; having the known peril to fear is perhaps easier than the unknown."

"Have you seen it up close then?" asked Dorasha.

He nodded.

"I gather Kitiara mentioned the time T'rin and I were out of the Harper Hall….it involved some Holdless Renegades and I'm not going to tell you anything more than that; and that's not giving anything much away, so I'm not being indiscreet to go so far. We spent Fall in some river cliffs, not very deep scrapes I assure you, with Thread a few spans away. And since I've lived in the Weyr I sometimes go to watch, just to remind myself again why I so respect dragonmen. The ledges of weyrs are safe enough if you don't go out from under the overhang, but you can look out…."

"What's it like?" Tireena wanted to know, though she squirmed in horror.

"What's it like? Grey. A shiny silvery grey, a bit like pewter embedded in snot. Thick, wriggling worms of grey, alive and not alive. It falls sometimes in sheets almost like sheets of heavy rain: but more often in clumps, the way snow falls at the beginning of a big snowstorm before it sets in properly. It has no intelligence but it looks as though it feels malevolent. A clump landed in front of me once at the weyr mouth and it gave me great satisfaction to pour Agenothree on it and watch it bubble and dissolve…I felt I'd done some of my bit towards killing it. Silly perhaps; on the rock there was nothing for it to grow in, it would have died anyway. But that's how I felt. I can't for obvious reasons walk sweep."

"That's pretty brave of you, Journeyman" said Dorasha. Asrina was sobbing hysterically.

"No, not really; brave is what dragonmen are" he said. "Threadscore is ugly. The High Reaches wings are very good, I understand; and injury, serious injury anyway, is virtually unknown, but most Riders pick up Threadscore at some point. They can freeze it off _Between_: and then they go right on fighting it. That's bravery. And some of them girls younger than you lot at that. NOW! That singing!"

"Thanks for telling us" said Dorasha "It IS easier to face something you know about. I feel better about going out with Kit next time."

The singsong was not entirely successful; Asrina refused point blank to do anything but sob and Lesara was not so ebullient as normal, being white faced and shaking, and unable to hit a single note to save her life!

Kitiara and Varalie returned some half an hour after the all-clear sounded, stinking of Agenothree. Varalie was quite plainly terrified by the experience, but somehow satisfied as well.

"I don't know that I'd do it again" she said "But I'm glad I can say I have done it. Kitiara's braver than me, and I acknowledge it freely!"

"Familiarity to the idea" shrugged Kit. "I've been walking sweep since I was ten turns old; you get used to it. Besides, I'm naturally phlegmatic. It's why I don't write good music; not enough imagination."

It was odd, Horgey reflected, in a way, to be back where these girls' reactions to Thread were considered normal. And yet how odd it had felt to be under shutters again!


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

It became customary for Dorasha to spend the half hour between the lesson and dinner catching up on the basic skills her own Hold Harper had not seen fit to teach her; and Kitiara threw herself with a will into helping the girl too.

Kit was very fond of the boys; but she had got to an age where the idea of having a female friend with similar interests had its attractions! Girls do, in some ways, grow up quicker than boys, and Kitiara was beginning to notice this!

Horgey soon became accustomed to the routine of the Harper Hall again; it was not, in many ways, different from the routines observed – as best as able, Threadfall permitting – by the Harperweyr; for both L'gal and T'rin found the time-honoured customs of their second home comforting and logical. There was more available in the Harper Hall, of course; two journeymen could not hope to produce the resources of the whole Harper Hall and all its masters; and Horgey was glad that Master Robinton had made the stipulation that senior apprentices should spend time here to consolidate their skills before being fully confirmed as journeymen. He was also appreciative that he was permitted to wear the knots of acting Journeyman as a courtesy to his age – and in acknowledgement of his teaching skills! These skills he was able to use and felt that with them he could truly give something back to the Harper Hall; and after a couple of sevendays with the Ranking girls, the Masterharper also asked Horgey if he would extend his teaching duties to take a class of Master Morshal's slower learners.

"Willingly, sir!" agreed Horgey. "I'm not so good as T'rin at bringing people on; but I'll certainly do my best."

The class consisted, of course, of a mix of the more troublesome and the more cowed elements: those Morshal could not be bothered with, or who, unable to cope with his abrasive style, made trouble instead. The boy Vaek was NOT in their number; troublesome he might be, but that was largely because the boy had real talent and was bored from lack of work rather than suffering from being overstretched! Horgey was glad: such a fertile imagination he was afraid might be beyond him, even as the girl Kullana was beyond him back in the Weyr! T'rin was the only person she really listened to, though on pain of being dismissed her apprenticeship she did now treat acting-Master L'gal with at least the outward respect his position demanded! Horgey had spoken to Ferry about Vaek, and suggested that T'rin would expect his friends to stretch that particular little imp as far as he could manage. Ferry nodded vehement agreement.

T'rin's friends had been one of the dormitories picked by Vaek and his cronies to treat to apple pie beds filled with pasta dyed grey to look like Thread!

Vaek rapidly found himself an errand boy to Senior Apprentice Ferry; and most of his leisure time filled with activities he could not really resent for them being fun!

Horgey took his own little class of eight boys back to basics; telling them that he needed them to show him what they knew – and more important, what they did not know for having missed or misunderstood in class. He appealed to their sense of fairness to each other to be patient if one or more of them required a lesson repeated more than the rest did; as the same courtesy would be extended to all.

With the reasons explained the natural sense of fair play inherent in most children meant that he had little trouble beyond a few good natured groans the third time he went through values of rests for one lad; save with one boy, a lad named Braid. Braid had been born Holdless, but had shown such musical talent and a taste for word play that his family had begged the Harper Hall to give him a chance. Braid's main problem was the immense chip he bore on his shoulder, getting in his retaliation first before anyone might make game of his lowly status in the eyes of most holdbound. As his tongue was cleverly vicious, the other children flinched before his sarcastic comments and often fumbled practical tasks if they felt his cynical eye on them. Braid's defensive attitude also led to him being truculent if not downright insolent to authority figures, and like T'arla found it hard to accept the harder but ultimately more flexible methodology of playing in the Harper Hall as compared to the evolved and simpler forms used by most amateur musicians.

Horgey asked the boy to stay behind after one class when Braid had sniped sotto voce throughout, and reduced one sensitive boy almost to tears. Horgey had told the sensitive lad, Gwetul, that the only opinion that counted was that of his masters; and that no other untrained brat had a right to comment, especially such that could not themselves perform as creditably as might be expected.

Braid expected a scathing ticking off and stood half defiantly, trying to look jauntily insouciant.

Horgey regarded him thoughtfully.

"Well, Braid, did you think that you were the only Harper ever who had been born Holdless that you make such a big thing of it?" he asked.

Braid blinked. He had certainly not expected to be addressed in so conversational a tone.

"Don't know any others" he muttered sullenly.

"I do" said Horgey. "An apprentice of the Harperweyr of High Reaches Weyr was so born, of a tinker family. Her name is Green Rider T'arla, and I understand that she too had difficulty accepting the reasons behind the conventions until Bronze Rider Acting-Master Harper L'gal explained it to her. She too was disruptive; and was shocked to find out that her behaviour was tantamount to bullying the other kids before she agreed to a proper apprenticeship. It was not something that suited her free thinking sense of fair play to be branded a bully. Do you like being a bully, Braid?"

Braid's mouth dropped open.

"I'm no fardling bully, Journeyman! Who says so?"

Horgey frowned.

"I'd say the tears in Gwetul's eyes bore adequate testimony to your bullying" he said "And Timmis' fumbling of his chords just because you looked at him sneeringly yesterday. There's more to bullying than twisting arms and bringing up Bitran Burns on smaller kids. The behaviour of some who teach comes close to bullying; though I'll not be specific in that. Anything that forces your actions enough on another to cause them distress is bullying. And you are a bully."

Braid looked stricken.

"I – I didn't mean…"

Horgey interrupted.

"I believe that. And THAT is why I wanted to talk to you about it quietly to nip such in the bud before it becomes too much of a habit to you. Use your clever tongue to snipe at the ills of society, or at your masters behind our backs for the amusement of your fellows by all means; such complaint is the traditional right of all apprentices, with the expectation of water rations if you get caught at it. Try not to get caught. Now, will you listen to an explanation of why you have to learn such things as new fingering, or will you just pledge me your word that you will stop interfering with the others until I get Green Rider T'arla to come and talk to you?"

Braid stared.

"You can – you WOULD ask a dragonrider to come and talk to me?"

Horgey shrugged.

"You plainly love music; so do I. So does she. She'd willingly give some of her time to help another labouring under the same misconception as her to enable you to enjoy music even more."

Braid was awed.

"S-sir, I'll listen to your explanation and try to understand; but p-please, if it's not too much trouble, could – could I speak to the Green Rider too? It- it'd be nice to talk to another once Holdless Harper and – and to be able to mention to those…."

"To the thoughtless mindless bullies who hold your birth against you?" asked Horgey.

The boy nodded wordlessly.

Horgey frowned.

"If it's not one thing to pick on, they'll find another if you show yourself vulnerable" he said. "Part of your trouble is the aggressive way you go on about being Holdless, you know. I think if you can manage just to present it as a fact you'd attract less of the wrong sort of attention. And you'd also not push away the very boys you ought to be forming friendships with to work together against the bullies."

"They'd not want to be friends with me"

"And how do you know that if you've never given them the chance? You could have been an excitingly dangerous person to know, like someone weyrbred. And I wager if you went to apologise to Gwetul, and Timmis too, to whom you were so silently scathing yesterday they'd be glad to bury the hatchet. Especially if you use your clever wordplay to write a clever song to one of Menolly's tunes – a pastiche even – to make fun of…well, I'll not mention names, but I've noted one boy you all have trouble with."

Braid grinned suddenly, and Horgey realised his fertile imagination was already crafting lyrics.

"Sir, don't you want me to make my own tunes?" he asked.

"My dear boy! ANYONE could write lyrics – one might have suspicions, but certainly any master will recognise a particular style of tunecrafting and would then almost have to take it up with the tunecrafter involved" said Horgey. "And if I made some suggestion in the heat of the moment, naturally I'd not expect anyone to think that I had made it seriously…."

"I see" said Braid. "You give me tools to deal with bullies unofficially rather than intervening directly."

"Harpers adjudicate in legal matters; and need to be quick witted to find just solutions. Dealing with their own problems is part of the training. We only intervene if the problem is likely to be truly dangerous to life and limb. Gavel – ah, other boys – have their own problems, or they'd not need to behave improperly. It's better if their peers can get them to a point to help them to sort themselves out, or be ready to ask for help than that authority should interfere directly. He has to know that he needs help. I'll step in if you and the other two – those are the brightest boys in your class next to you, by the way, it's why they feel your scorn the more – can't sort him out for yourselves."

"Do you really think we can, sir?" Braid's eyes shone.

"I think you can do whatever you believe that you can do" said Horgey. "Speaking of which, I promised you an explanation about the more complex fingering."

Braid listened with devoted attention as Horgey explained how amateur fingering on gitar or pipes meant that only simple popular tunes could ever be played, and that to aspire to be a Harper one needed the flexibility to play more than popular dances and shanties. Braid nodded understanding, the dawning comprehension dawning in his face as Horgey spoke.

"Why didn't Master Morshal explain that?" he demanded.

"Well now, a journeyman is not supposed to use strong language either to an apprentice or about masters so you can't possibly expect me to answer questions like that!" grinned Horgey.

Braid grinned back.

"No, I guess it's forbidden to call a Master a silly old caprine, so I'd better not either" he said.

"And one day, when you've started teaching, you'll appreciate how easy it is to want to tell your apparently wilfully stupid boys to just stick their heads down the Necessary at times and have more sympathy" said Horgey. "Now get along with you, you horrid brat, and don't forget what I said about speaking to Gwetul and Timmis!" he added good naturedly.

"I shall, sir. Thank you!"

Horgey wrote straight away to T'arla, sending Cadenza with the note.

T'arla's reply was quick, if terse. It read,

"Right-oh, acting-journeyman sir-oh-mighty-one."

Braid was no more trouble in class after that; and by working with Gwetul and Timmis, all three pulled noticeably ahead, and were almost certain to be confirmed as apprentices at Turnover. Of the other five, Horgey thought two might reach the required standard in the time; the other three had until the mid turn before they were definitely dismissed for insufficient ability, and he had hopes if not expectations. He would at least see them capable of playing a tune for their own satisfaction, even if they never rose above amateur level!

Meanwhile, rude songs featuring Gavel were also to be heard, and were quickly taken up by the other boys!

The one featuring an unnamed but recognisable Master being mistaken for a teaching drum and being well butted by a musically inclined caprine was a little excessive, however; and Horgey summoned Braid.

"No more of the caprine song" he said sternly. "You made your point and relieved some feelings I wager. He deserves respect for his ability; jokes can go too far."

Braid grinned unrepentantly.

"It might have got a life of its own by now" he said hopefully "So I can promise not to sing it any more."

"Hopefully not" said Horgey. It's too complex for most of the boys. You had your laugh: end it. And by the way, write me out a copy."

"All right, sir!" agreed Braid, equably. He recognised the warning in Horgey's voice; but appreciated that his teacher liked his efforts enough to want a copy himself!

Horgey planned to send it to T'rin, who would enjoy it! The Journeyman doubted it had actually come to Morshal's ears; or that if it had, the irritable Master had probably not realised it referred to him. Even so, Masters needed to be treated with respect, even if one did not feel much respect for them.

Dorasha too was coming on apace; and Horgey finally felt able to ask the Masterharper if he would test her once more.

Dorasha was nervous; but Horgey and Kitiara assured her that they had every faith in her ability!

The Masterharper tested Dorasha thoroughly; listening to her sing scales major and minor, asked her to tune her gitar and play and sing by sight – something she had worked hard to master – and play on other instruments. Then he said,

"Well, apprentice, you appear to have acquired all the skills and more to begin an apprenticeship; pending your passing Master Jerint's requirements in instrument crafting – which I know you have no experience in yet – you are adequate for a confirmed status. I see no difficulty about you reaching that by Turnover if you work hard under the Instrumentcrafter. I shall, however, suggest that you start in the classes with the smaller boys for the time being until you find your feet. Work hard – Kit and her friends will help you – and you should soon find yourself in classes more appropriate to your turns."

"THANK you sir!" exclaimed Dorasha.

"Oh I think it is Journeyman Horgey you have to thank, for his efforts; and Kitiara too I wager" smiled the Masterharper "And I suspect that your own hard work may have had something to do with it. I wish you all the best!"

As Dorasha was now a friend of Kitiara's, the boys made no grumble at her moving into the bed that had been T'rin's before he was promoted to journeyman; and they all helped manhandle the screens that covered the girls' end as the boys started to call it! Dorasha was a little taken aback, seabred or no, to share a dormitory with boys; but when Kit explained the original reason, and how the boys were such close friends that moving seemed silly, she shrugged and accepted the situation: merely suggesting that as Kit had grown older and she herself was unused to bathing with boys, that perhaps they might go back to the arrangement of girls first in the bathing room.

The boys were glad to agree; they were of an age to be embarrassed by Kit's visible womanhood and appreciated her turning her back, for none wanted to say anything to her to hurt her feelings! A suggestion from another girl, however, solved the problem and saved face all round!

Through lessons and through Kit's dormitory mates, Dorasha quickly came into contact with Vaek; and was amused to be taken under his wing and introduced around to 'the fellows' as he called his various friends and peers. It made an easier transition from the privileged class of paying girls into true apprenticeship to have a moderately partisan self-appointed guardian! As it happened it had been in response to a comment made by Kit to Ferry about Dorasha that Vaek had overheard. Vaek thought Kit as good as any boy, and hero-worshipped her almost as impartially as he did Ferry, Anslas, Kerill, Stev and Shoris, the boys who gave him most time. Any friend of Kit's must be worth knowing and should be helped, in Vaek's opinion, to catch up to her proper age and make up for having inadequate teaching at home!

Dorasha's knowledge was a trifle uneven. She was good enough at theory to escape most of Master Morshal's caustic comments, save those about her being a girl, which was something she could not change, nor did she want to. In fact she was good enough to graduate out of Morshal's class, but Robinton wanted her to have the experience of seeing that she could more than keep up with boys who had been apprenticed for half a turn, or in some cases almost the turn round. As Robinton had said, she had never even attempted instrument crafting until Horgey introduced her to the basics. Master Jerint's workshop was a wonder to her and she was glad of Vaek's guidance around the tools and the rules of safety too!

Dorasha had already been studying with Master Shonagar – the paying girls took singing as a special class and were expected to make themselves available for entertainments as sopranos – and the girl had been glad of the extra classes Horgey had arranged for her with Kit's lessons. Shonagar was very satisfied with Dorasha; she did not have the sweetest voice he had ever trained by a long chalk; but her breath control was good and she did what she was told and could be trusted to follow a score without making up her own off key variations in a reedy warble, as Lesara had been accused of by that flamboyant master. Dorasha would continue to attend classes together with Kit, who satisfied Master Shonagar for similar reasons to Dorasha and for the reason that now he knew she was a girl he was never going to have to worry about her voice breaking at the most awkward of moments as so many trebles seemed to do with almost deliberate seeming perversity. Kit's wicked sense of humour and her ability to embarrass Shonagar got her into regular trouble; such as when he had demanded,

"BIG breaths!" and she had quipped,

"Yeth mathter and me not yet thixthteen!"

Kitiara had been on water rations for three days for that piece of cheek once it had sunk in; and she thought it well worth it for the expression on his face!

Dorasha was also competent enough at drumming; as a Ranking girl of an isolated Hold only conveniently reachable by boat, she had learned drum measures from an early age. She also benefited from the dormitory's logic charts! She avoided too much of the legendary temper of Master Olodkey, who in any case had very little to do with younger apprentices who were not specialist drum apprentices. She was also competent enough at the instruments she elected to study; though she had never had any urge to write her own tunes nor craft variations. She was not particularly looking forward to that part of her training when she graduated from Morshal's class to study under Master Domick, but she would not be alone in finding the subject challenging and difficult, as Shoris pointed out; it was not his favourite exercise either. The girl had also been trained to keep Hold records and so wrote a fair enough hand to satisfy Master Arnor, the Masterrecordkeeper; and being well versed in history too received no complaint from him on that score either. Kit thought it likely that it would not be long before her friend was capable of holding her own with boys her own age, even though she was never likely to catch up with most of The Dormitory! Except maybe Duthi and Lisend, who had not progressed as fast without T'rin to light a fire under their tails as he had done as Tyrin. Lisend was happy enough at the drum heights; and would make a Hold a good drum journeyman some day. Stev was a special pupil of Master Domick, taking the variation crafting and tune writing further than his fellows, spending therefore less time with his erstwhile inseparable companions for the weight of work he was required to turn in! Ferry, Anslas, Kerill and Shoris, together with Kit, liked to find out about everything – and not just music, for they made it their business to know everyone else's business often before the principal protagonists did – and preferred not to specialise; though Shoris was still a special pupil of Master Shonagar since his adult voice had settled down to a clear pure tenor. Duthi was very much the odd man out, not interested in logicating, struggling to keep up with classes. Indeed he was considering throwing up his apprenticeship to return home. Kit hoped the pessimistic boy might change his mind in light of a new, less accomplished member of the dormitory; but she feared that he would not. Duthi would never excel at anything, not for want of ability but because even T'rin had never managed to break past his inherent lack of self belief. It was a pity; but only Duthi could help Duthi!

Dorasha knew nothing of this, or of the slight tension it caused in The Dormitory, though she was gradually included in the group as they told stories of their own younger days together when she passed back to them whatever new prank Vaek had got up to! Dorasha thought them so lucky to have a dragonriding friend who still remembered them! And because he had given them firelizard eggs they would not feel envious or resentful of her pets!


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

T'arla came visiting to the Harper Hall shortly after Horgey had written to her, a passenger on her weyrmate's big Bronze dragon.

L'gal wanted to purchase some drum clips and metal harp strings from Master Jerint in any case, so combined the errands; and he also used his instrument crafting requirements to discuss T'arla's cousin Meeri with Master Domick, for the girl was a natural tunecrafter.

T'arla went in search of Horgey, and found him wrapping up a lesson on timing notation with his Ranking girls, having been introducing more complex pieces for them and finding that they had no idea how to translate the time-honoured words used to indicate slower or faster passages.

T'arla propped herself up against the wall and listened cynically to Asrina whining that the notes all have their proper length and it wasn't fair that some Harpers should change their minds about what that meant.

Horgey counted to ten.

"It's not changing that much" he said, with obvious patience. "The values of the notes in relationship with each other remain the same. And the number in each bar must remain the same. But some passages need to be taken a little slower – or a little faster. Not enough to half the values of the notes by changing from crotchets to quavers or vice-versa; just a little."

"It's quite simple, you silly chit" drawled T'arla as Asrina stared blankly. "Think of the notation as walking steps. A Holder girl walks out of the Hold at normal speed; on her way to the Gather ground she passes a lewd fellow who eyes her up in a way that makes her feel uncomfortable and she walks a little faster to pass him quickly but hopes he won't notice that she's speeded up a bit; she won't run because she'd lose her dignity. Later on she passes a handsome Brown Rider and dawdles a little in the hopes he'll notice her; but she doesn't slow down too much in case he thinks she's, er, fast, if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor."

Horgey blinked.

"Why, thank you apprentice Harper Green Rider T'arla!" he said. "I like that description, though I'm glad it was a woman put it that way, not me!"

T'arla grinned.

"You're welcome, Journeyman" she said. "And my apologies for interrupting your class; it's chill out there."

"Under the circumstances, more than accepted" said Horgey. "Girls, does that help you any?"

Asrina was not going to admit to it, nor Lesara; but the other two nodded thoughtfully.

"Very well, let's sing that piece through again, and watch my conducting for your timing. T'arla, will you join us?"

"Thanks, I'd love to" said T'arla. "What are we singing? Oh, it's that new piece by Journeyman Menolly isn't it? I've not seen it in its entirety yet, only the couple of phrases of the chorus L'gal jotted down on his cuff last time he was over."

"Take a copy back and welcome" suggested Horgey. "I've plenty, thanks to Woodcrafter Elissa churning out pages and pages ready printed with lines to take notation on, it fascinates my apprentices enough that they almost enjoy being set copying for punishment."

"That printing is fardling useful" agreed T'arla. "Oh yes, it's easy enough."

She never realised how she was glared at by those Ranking girls who never found sight reading 'easy' and found this piece a challenge to read even having heard it played!

After class was dismissed, Horgey sent Danel to look for the boy Braid while he filled T'arla in on what had been the problem. She laughed ruefully.

"You sorted that out quicker than T'rin and L'gal managed to with me" she said.

Horgey shrugged.

"But then I had the advantage of having your case to cite: the admiration for a Holdless-born dragonrider drove most of the defiance out of the boy's head. And if it was good enough for a dragonrider, it was certainly good enough for him!"

She laughed.

"Devious little creep you are, Horgey! Well done – I bet he's happier now!"

Horgey nodded.

"He's managed to make friends with some of the others too; and I'm hoping they can do a T'rin on a bully, for it's better from the lad's peers than from a member of the faculty."

T'arla nodded.

"Though as you are still studying yourself that makes you closer than a Master. And you've experience…"

He nodded.

"If it comes to that, I'll use it. Ah, Braid" as there was a knock at the door and the boy came in "This is Green Rider Harper Apprentice T'arla; perhaps you'd care to escort her to the dining hall and introduce her to your friends" he smiled encouragingly at the boy who gulped, and stammered a greeting to so exalted a being.

T'arla grinned at him.

"Lad, I sit on the necessary to shit like anyone else" she said bluntly. "Let's get rid of too much of this formality, huh? We share a craft; I'm a little more experienced in it than you."

T'arla had not yet earned the tassel of a senior apprentice, but she and Mi'a were hoping to do so soon!

The Ranking girls had expected to have an important person like a female dragonrider sitting with them; that Bronze Rider L'gal sat with the masters was quite understandable, but if both dragonriders were not to sit with the Masters, the rank of a Rider surely meant that she would sit with others of Rank! And some at least of them were vociferously disgruntled when T'arla went to sit with the younger apprentices! It was just the outside of enough that she also seemed to be on excellent terms with Dorasha and Kitiara and their friends by the end of the meal!

Lesara made a skilful outflanking manoeuvre to attempt to buttonhole T'arla, with the opening gambit – following a giggle –

"Oh Green Rider! Please, do tell me how it came about that you've Impressed a Green Dragon like the famous Mirrim of Benden!"

T'arla laughed carelessly.

"Because I've the guts to be ready to fight Thread I guess" she said. "Excuse me, uh…oh, paying student" – it was almost insultingly said – "I was speaking with my friends" and T'arla turned away.

The spots of colour appeared on Lesara's cheeks and the mean look came into her face again. The look she threw at Kitiara and Dorasha plainly showed that she blamed them for the snub!

Vaek's audible comment infuriated the girl more:

"Cuh, don't the old hag look like she incubated a firelizard egg and hatched a poisonous tunnel snake, it being related to her!"

Vaek went off, unknowing – and it is to be said, uncaring – how angry he had made Lesara. When she turned her gaze upon his retreating and unconcerned back and started to follow him, warning bells rang in Horgey's head: and he followed as quickly as he might, wheeling himself rather than lose time locating Danel, who was chatting to Camo right across the Hall. It was slow; and by the time he caught up with Lesara she had both of Vaek's arms twisted up behind him in the empty choir room.

"You little tunnel snake" she was hissing "You'll apologise to me for your rudeness, and on your bended knees!"

"Not even if you twist my arms off!" gasped the boy.

"I can break your fingers one by one so badly you'll never play again!" she taunted.

That hurt Vaek more than the physical pain; but he was too stubborn to give in though tears of pain ran down his face and sweat beaded his brow.

"Lesara!" Horgey spoke sharply "Let him go immediately and go to my room!"

Lesara was too angry to be rational or sensible.

"What are you going to do to make me, useless lowborn cripple?" she sneered, giving Vaek's arm another vicious twist. The little boy gave an involuntary cry.

Horgey wheeled up to her; and with painful effort pushed himself into a standing position. He felt the sweat start to bead on his own brow with the effort and ignored it and the pain.

"Get your hands off him or I'll take them off" he said, hoping that he would not be forced to lay hands on a Ranking woman. Lesara turned, sneering, and let go with one hand – to push Horgey!

The crippled youth fell heavily and painfully as Vaek cried out in sheer indignation that Lesara should dare attack a Journeyman too! Cadenza flew shrieking in rage at Lesara, who swiped viciously at her; and Horgey felt hot pain in his own face as Cadenza winked _Between_ only to reappear again almost immediately by his shoulder, hissing angrily at the girl. Horgey was busy fighting waves of nausea from the pain and realised thankfully that the worst of it was in his funnybone, on which he had landed, not his back – or at least, the pain was not enough to be a rebreak! Cadenza's pain troubled him to, and he was furious on his little green firelizard's behalf! He had to get up!

As Horgey struggled to rise, trying not to vomit, T'arla ran into the room, assessed the situation at a glance, slapped Lesara hard and grabbed her by the upper arms. After giving the girl a good shaking with arms strengthened by shifting firestone sacks, T'arla sat on a stool and bent the girl over her lap, took off her belt, and proceeded to apply it scientifically to the rear end of the now screeching Lesara, to the delighted whoops of Vaek!

Kit was scarcely behind T'arla and wend directly to Horgey, Flute scolding on her shoulder as much as Cadenza!

"Horgey – are you all right?" she asked, slipping an arm under his shoulders to support him. Horgey nodded.

"I think so….am I glad you two happened on the scene!"

"I saw you go out…you looked worried so I grabbed T'arla to follow you. We tracked you down by the raised voices. Whoh, she's got a good strong wrist action, hasn't she?"

Horgey grinned.

"I've been wanting to do that any time the last five sevendays….Kit, you'd better get the Masterharper he'll have to know about this."

"The Masterharper" said Robinton's melodious voice "Followed the dragonrider following the journeyman following that girl following the apprentice. I think that sums it up."

Horgey nodded.

T'arla ceased punishment in deference to the Masterharper the moment she heard his voice; though Lesara's strident yells did not abate immediately!

"Sorry, Masterharper, to pre-empt your discipline in your own Hall" said T'arla formally. She did not sound sorry in the least.

Lesara had become aware that her ischial tuberosities were no longer under assault and had paused for breath long enough to hear T'arla address the Masterharper.

"Oh Masterharper!" she wailed "I was attacked without provocation!"

"Why, you lying tunnel snake!" Vaek's voice was a treble squeal of indignation "After you pushed the journeyman over of all things!"

"He was going to put his HANDS on me, Masterharper!" wept Lesara, trying to turn her face up to look appealingly at Master Robinton. As her behind was what was principally facing him it was difficult. "You'd not expect me not to defend myself against a lewd attack, would you?"

Robinton's eyes narrowed.

"Horgey, tell me what happened in your own words; and Lesara, keep your mouth shut until he finishes; you will have your say in due course."

Horgey nodded. His mouth felt dry from reaction, but he no longer wanted to be sick. Cadenza buried her face against him and he stroked her back.

"I saw the girl Lesara follow apprentice Vaek; and I didn't like the look on her face. I believe her to have already bullied another girl in Dunca's cot, on whom I saw bruises that looked uncommonly like a Bitran Burn. I believe others of this girl's age group helped HER out" he said. "When I caught up with Lesara she was twisting both of Vaek's arms behind his back and threatening to break his fingers to maim him so he could never play again if he did not apologise abjectly – not that she would have so complex a word in her vocabulary – for an insolent, but not entirely inexcusable remark about her in the dining room. It was the sort of comment that a child might make that any reasonable person retains their dignity best by ignoring. I believe that she was also taking out on him the anger that she felt by being snubbed by the Green Rider who did not like Lesara's pushy and contumelious attempts to engage her in conversation. I called upon her to stop and let go of the boy and to go to my room where I intended to give her a good ticking off. She refused."

"She called him a lowborn cripple and said he couldn't make her!" piped up Vaek when Horgey paused for breath. The child subsided when the Masterharper held up an admonitory finger and looked at Horgey.

"Essentially, yes, that's what she said" agreed Horgey. "I managed to stand and threatened to take her hands off if she did not let go; I don't actually know if I could have. And then she pushed me and I fell. She knocked Cadenza aside when she tried to defend me – and look, that wretched brat's ring has cut her!" he added indignantly as Cadenza emerged from his neck at the sound of her name and he caught sight of the small crescent shaped cut on the little creature's smooth head. "My poor little brave one! Vaek, run to Silvina for numbweed – and let her slather you first!"

Vaek grinned.

"I'M all right, Journeyman!" he boasted. "Tough as boots, me! I'll get some for Cadenza though!" and he ran off.

"See? He says he's all right, I wasn't really hurting him!" said Lesara.

Robinton regarded her with disfavour, signalling to T'arla to let her up. T'arla helped her rise with more roughness than courtesy.

The Masterharper spoke very quietly; but everyone listened.

"Attacking a small child just ten turns old…..and then attacking a Journeyman after refusing to obey his orders. And incidentally, the penalties for attacking an accredited Harper can be quite harsh. I believe you have overstepped yourself this time, Lesara of Fairpastures."

"What do you mean? It's all them! Horgey has it in for me! He's been cruel to me from the first!" she declared. Horgey felt his heart sink. With his previous record, would the Masterharper believe the girl's lies? She went on, "That – that BRAT runs at his beck and call, insulting me at his command and that of his slut Kitiara!" she spat the words out.

"I've told you about slandering people before" warned Kitiara. "Slandering a Journeyman is only slightly less worser than wounding one!"

Robinton winced.

"Less worser?" he mused. "Alas for the cold blooded murder of the language! Lesara, if Journeyman Horgey had been harsh with you, then you might have had just cause for complaint – but not for violence! And he has not. I have kept a very close eye on all his doings for he is under assessment here. You are a liar; and I shall be reporting your behaviour not merely to your father but also to your overlord, Lord Larad."

Horgey nodded, pleased and relieved. The Masterharper was a fair man indeed! And Larad was cited by the High Reaches people as a good man, fair and competent both. Telgar Hold was respected by T'bor's people, even if their views of Telgar Weyr were a little less complimentary!

Lesara set up another shriek.

"It isn't FAIR! I've done nothing wrong but to chastise some low-borns who insulted me! As for that weyrslut…."

T'arla advanced on her again, starting to take off the belt she had just resumed and the girl fell back towards the Masterharper with a whinny of terror.

"I would ask you to please desist, Green Rider" said Master Robinton.

T'arla shrugged and rebuckled her belt.

"At your command, Masterharper" she said. "But I do ask you to witness her words and repeat them to Lord Larad; who respects the Weyr. That, I am sure, is preferable to you than my weyrmate duelling and slicing open the chit's idiot father."

"Infinitely" said Robinton dryly. "L'gal might damage his hands in a duel which would be detrimental to his harping and that would be a tragedy. Ah, Vaek, there's a good lad."

"May I put it on her while you soothe her, journeyman?" asked Vaek with breathless hope in his voice.

Horgey smiled.

"Thank you lad, I'd be glad if you would."

With numbweed on the little cut, Cadenza's eyes stopped whirling so fast; and she gave a little chirp of thanks to Vaek and butted against him for caresses.

"She's so soft!" he said "She's lovely!"

"She's the loveliest" agreed Horgey, soppily.

Faylina, and Silvina, both arrived at this moment, puffing slightly; Vaek had run ahead. Faylina exclaimed, seeing Horgey still on the ground.

"Now then, young Horgey, let's check you over before we try to get you back in that chair" she said fussily.

"I'm fine, Faylina" he said "I was just….letting things settle. And giving testimony to Master Robinton."

She tutted.

"I can tell YOU've been long enough in the Weyr, you're even starting to sound like a dragonrider! I'LL be the judge of if you're fine or no!" quickly she ran her fingers up his back. "Where does it hurt?" she asked.

Horgey gave her a lopsided grin.

"My left elbow actually" he said. "It's where I landed. It took all the force of the fall; my back's jarred a little but fine."

"Hmmph" said Faylina. "Did any of that numbweed see your elbow?"

Horgey looked surprised.

"No of course not! Cadenza needed it first, where that…..girl…..hit her!"

"Hmmph. Let's do that elbow then – and check it's not chipped or broken. And then we'll get you sat down."

" I suppose SHE'LL be isolated in a ward in the infirmary, Masterharper?" said Silvina

Robinton nodded.

Lesara turned on the tears.

"Oh for shells' sake!" said, Silvina irritably "That sort of thing doesn't impress me. Don't think I haven't noticed all your mean tricks, my girl, for I have; and believe me, you'll be a greater asset to the Hall in your absence! You're a waste of space!"

Lesara glowered.

"Well at least I've never birthed a defective!" she hissed malevolently.

Silvina recoiled as though she had been struck; and Robinton paled beneath his tan. Little bronze Zair swore and hissed on the Masterharper's shoulder.

"SURE you don't want me to whop her some more, Masterharper?" growled T'arla.

"Quite, thank you" said Robinton, tightly. "I'm sure Lord Larad will be equal to the task of discipline himself. He has plenty of mines that are always crying out for enforced labour that he usually sentences violent criminals to work. You may, however" he spoke up slightly over Lesara's fresh tirade over that suggestion "Help Silvina and Faylina to see that she gets to secure quarters in the infirmary until I have a chance to write to her overlord."

"Gladly" said T'arla, grimly, seizing Lesara by the arm. "C'mon you!"

Horgey eased himself back into his chair with Kitiara's help; and he looked up at the Masterharper.

"An unpleasant incident, Master Robinton….I'm sorry I did not manage to succeed with her. I cannot think that her cruelty stems from being hurt herself; she showed no FEAR of being sent home, only anger."

"Violence breeding violence is only one of the causes" said the Masterharper "Though it is a major, indeed probably THE major one. But cruelty may spring also from two other sources; from a person spoiled so badly that they have never been brooked and so have no idea of consequences and no concern for how their actions affect other people, since in their selfish view, no other people matter: and in rare cases it may stem from a quirk of personality that is like an illness of the mind, the desire to cause pain; indeed even a stimulation of desire by the causing of pain; or sometimes a total failure to understand the consequences of their actions."

Horgey nodded.

"The inability to understand consequences I've come across through the logicators; a man who lived only for what was happening at the time" he said. "Young Vaek, this was not really for your ears. You'll be discreet I hope?"

Vaek nodded enthusiastically.

"I can help logicate too!" he said cheerfully. "Ferry told me about it!"

Robinton laughed.

"Well, young Vaek, try not to get into too much trouble with it!" he said. "We already had a Mastertroublefinder in Journeyman Blue Rider T'rin!"

Vaek looked injured! he was not however displeased to be in any way compared to the legendary T'rin!

Robinton had no doubt that the girl would receive short shrift from her overlord, though she thought Lord Larad would stop short of having a girl dig at a mine face. She might end up drudging for miners, however! Lord Holder Larad had had quite enough crackdust from spoiled girls in the person of his sister Thella, the self-styled Lady Holdless; and his sister Kylara had caused plenty of trouble too with her scandalous affair with the late Lord Holder Meron that ultimately caused the deaths of two Golden Queen dragons. No, Larad would NOT be impressed by any spoiled brat!


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

The departure of Lesara cheered the three remaining Ranking girls considerably; and even Asrina refrained from whining quite as much!

Braid was overjoyed to have met a once Holdless dragonrider-harper, and raised courage to talk to Ferry as the older boy obviously knew her. He and his friends were promptly invited into what Horgey dubbed The Dormitory's junior wing!

Kit lingered after class was dismissed and the other girls were gone.

"I wrote to my father" she said. "Silly, isn't it, he lives not three hundred paces away…..but I'm voluntarily as separate from my kin as any other apprentice" she glanced at Horgey. "I told him how you'd changed a lot and that I was now working with you….he wants to meet you."

Horgey paled a little.

"I guess he has every right to" he said "After all, I DID set upon his little girl – not, I have to confess, because you were a helpless looking little girl, I might have jeered but….it was because I thought you were T'rin's girlfriend or a relative of his and I wanted to hurt HIM!"

She nodded.

"Oh I already figured THAT out" she said. "And I told father too; but he wants to meet you anyway. Can you come to our quarters in the Hold for a meal next Threadfall? He thought it would disrupt your studies and mine less, 'cos no-one manages proper studies during Threadfall anyway. I've been excused Sweep."

"That's very thoughtful of your father to think of that!" Horgey was struck by how remarkable a man Lord Teefer must be to consider so deeply the convenience of others.

"He is" said Kitiara. "He's pretty good really, as parents go, and he's prepared to meet you like he's never met you. He doesn't want an apology or even any reference made to before; that you've apologised to me is enough for him."

Horgey shook his head in wonder.

"A special man indeed" he said.

Lord Teefer and Lady Kiarna greeted Horgey politely, even warmly. Kiarna looked enough like her father, Lord Groghe, for the relationship to be obvious, but not enough to stop her being a very handsome woman. She was a neat, dark haired woman and her light blue eyes had avoided the protuberant appearance of her sire's! Kit had got her red hair from her father's family: Teefer was the younger son of a Runnerholder from Ruatha whose family shared an ancestor or two in common with Lessa of Benden; and probably with the Mulgan trader train too!

"I'm glad to meet Kit's – er, Kitiara's – parents" said Horgey, nervously. "She's not at all like some of the Ranking girls I've been teaching, for she's really nice and – er" he flushed, realising a lack of tact.

Teefer roared with laughter.

"Now that unrehearsed sentence tells me more about the young man I've heard so much about than anything!" he said. "You mean you think we've done a reasonable job as parents in not spoiling her rotten or encouraging her to be a hopeless makeweight?"

Horgey flushed even deeper.

"Er….yes, sir, something along those lines" he said.

"Well, lad, I've fostered a few useless articles before" Teefer said "With her older sister; and I can't say many of them impressed me much."

"Dorasha's all right" said Kitiara "She's seabred like Menolly, which can cause its own problems, but at least they don't breed 'em mimsy; and she's being a real apprentice too. And Varalie's a nice enough kid."

"I'm so glad, my dear" said her mother "That you have some girls you can make friends with."

"Reckon I'll like it more when the Impressed girls come up to be confirmed as Journeymen though" grinned Kit.

"Oh the Ranking girls aren't all bad" said Horgey "And even the ones with….difficult personalities….. are not ENTIRELY bad. It's a bit like being a miner though; you have to dig through an awful lot of dirt to find a gem."

Teefer chuckled.

"A Harper's wicked tongue."

"Well, sir, I have to find things about them to make me laugh; or I'd just get depressed. The problem is that one loud nasty one and one aggressively lazy one can so put the dampners on things it's harder to see the good in the enthusiastic one, the pleasant natured one and the daft but mostly harmless one" Horgey explained.

"Mostly harmless?"

"She has a temper – her firelizard gets a bit nervous because of it. But she's up and down, no sulks" Horgey reflected that the one time Tireena had lost her temper in class she had apologised almost immediately, and quite sincerely!

"Nothing much worse than a sulky girl – save perhaps a sly one" nodded Kiarna. "I heard the girl from Telgar was dismissed in disgrace?"

Horgey looked nonplussed.

"Shards, does news carry so? Yes, she'd been bullying another girl; then she picked on a very small apprentice and she pushed me over when I tried to stop her. I don't actually think she's entirely sane; spoiled beyond the point of rationality."

Kiarna nodded.

"Rank can go to some people's heads" she said. "My brother Benis was VERY impressed with being a younger son of our father; the fosterlings with him flattered him up until he thought he sat higher than a Bronze Rider. HOW I laughed when Menolly hit him so hard. Not that father ever encouraged any such bad behaviour in any of us; I think it was the bad influence of his so-called friends. And when there's spoiling as well as a natural tendency to self importance….well, let me also say that some Weyrbred Riders are more courteous than others too."

"No one in High Reaches better be discourteous or T'bor will know the reason why in short order!" said Horgey, automatically.

"Of course….you've been living in the Weyr with young T'rin. No, sorry, I didn't mean that the way it came out" Teefer grimaced "No offence or reference to sexual preference intended."

"None taken, sir. I have personal reasons for disliking alternative practises; but I keep it to myself and try not to let it colour my opinions of those who are so inclined of choice. It is part of Weyr life, and the beauty of the Weyr is that nobody forces anything on anyone – or they're stopped if they try in the heat of dragonlust, which is taken as excuse for some discourtesy. People – Green Riders, really, I mean – can sequester themselves so their dragons er, needs don't lead to anything they'd regret. Especially the younger boys – and girls."

"That's nice to know" said Kiarna. "Do they let women ride Green Dragons at Fort Weyr, do you know?"

Horgey grimaced.

"Not hardly!" he said. "T'lana – who's only just Turned twenty herself – says N'ton is too young to be anything but ….er, conservative" he modified T'lana's comment of 'a pompous stick in the mud'.

"That sounded like the famous Harper tact exercised there" laughed Teefer.

"Well….differences between Weyrs should be kept Weyr business" said Horgey. "Any dragonrider is brave, man or woman: but they're human like the rest of us and can be as quirky as anyone."

"I think N'ton is afraid of criticism from er, older riders like T'bor if he seems to radical, actually" said Teefer "What I can surmise is that he's been at the forefront of letting young Lord Jaxom have more training on Ruth than either the collective Lords Holder or Benden think appropriate, though I'd rather that remained under Harper discretion; and he also has to handle his Riders carefully. Remember, most of High Reaches went with T'kul; a significant proportion of Fort Riders stayed when T'ron and his closest cronies went South."

"Ah" said Horgey "Discretion is all very well, but if I can hint some, it might lead to better relations, you know."

"I leave it to your Harper wit then" said Teefer "If what I have told you can help Weyr relations I shall be glad."

"The reason I asked about women and Greens" said Kiarna "Because our older daughter has gone as a candidate to Fort Weyr. And I thought if she had a chance at a Green as well as the Queen egg…."

"TEFFIE? By the first egg, mother I'VE more chance at a Queen egg than Teffie. She is the silliest creature!" said Kitiara in disgust.

"Your sister has grown up a lot" said her father. "You've been long away from home. It is her Right whatever chance she may or may not have; you should not be so unkind."

"Sorry, Father" said Kitiara, flushing. "Yes, I've not seen that much of her over the last three turns."

"People do change" said Horgey "When they grow up."

"And that is something to be pleased about, often enough" said Kiarna, quietly, smiling at him. "Teffie had some bad influences in that girl your father sent away and her brother…. I can't even recall their names. I asked if they'd send someone to pick you up for the hatching, Kit….if you'd like?"

"Oh YES!" said Kitiara "Hatchings are splendid! Aren't they, Horgey?"

Horgey nodded.

"When it's someone you know, a protégé say – or I suppose kin – who's standing on the hatching sands it's even better I guess" he said.

"Have you Impressed kin?" asked Teefer.

Horgey shook his head.

"Not as such…though in many ways the Harpers of the Harperweyr have been far more my kin than any I was born with" he said. "And we had two Harper apprentices Impress last time, I'linne and C'lara" he grinned "You could describe them both as wordy girls, but in such different ways; T'arla calls them Silence and Simplicity, for C'lara never stops talking and I'linne uses long words and complex sentences. She's a good kid, and her Impressing stopped a lot of ill natured things some people – out of the Weyr I hasten to add – would say. She's one of Lord Meron's daughters" he added by way of explanation.

Teefer and Kiarna nodded sympathetic understanding.

"Is she someone special to you?" asked Kiarna.

Horgey considered her question.

"Yes; but not romantically, if that was what you meant, My Lady. She was injured, and we spent a lot of time during the day in adjacent beds talking and playing instruments and singing. She's someone who knows all about me and still is my friend. I suppose I look on her was a recently acquired sister" he added. "I feel protective towards her because of that. But the whole group is close; T'rin treats me almost like a foster brother now."

"That's nice" said Kiarna. "If you've never felt you had proper kin, it must be comforting."

He nodded.

"I never knew what proper kin were supposed to be like" he said honestly "And now I'm old enough to think about such things, the idea of getting married and deliberately having children is pretty scary – because parents are such a big influence and can make or mar a child so easily!"

Teefer and Kiarna exchanged a glance. That told them something about Horgey's unhappy early life!

The meal was pleasant; good food and accompanied by pleasant talk. Horgey was grateful that Kitiara's parents wanted to meet him as the youth he had become without dwelling on the boy that he had been; and they were pleasantly surprised by him! He told them far more about himself than he ever realised; especially in the one telling remark, when talk drifted back to the subject of apprentices; for Horgey commented of the more privileged children,

"I find it extraordinary when I find bad behaviour - not mischief, that's normal, but MEAN behaviour – in children who come from homes where there's no violence, and even have parents who love them; I can't see how they would want to be naughty when they've nothing to be unhappy about. And then too I start wondering if someone has inappropriate urges that he has exercised upon them, for that on its own is enough to cause misery even without other factors."

Horgey said to Kit as she wheeled him back towards the Harper Hall,

"You've got fantastic parents, Kit. You don't know how lucky you are."

"I didn't" she admitted honestly. "Now I know about yours, and also about Shoris' family who think singing is a waste of time for a man, I realise that I AM truly lucky. I'm really glad we've adopted you now, us Dormitory Lot as well as the Harperweyr."

He smiled up and back at her over his shoulder.

"Why thank you for adopting me! I feel quite touched, after the way I behaved…"

"Shards, you were unhappy" she said "And us too young to understand and try to help you."

"I reckon I might have taken it amiss if you had tried" he said, seriously. "Breaking my back seemed at the time the very worst thing that could ever happen; but I reckon it's been the best thing, in a peculiar sort of way, you know."

"How much can you actually do?" she asked curiously "You stood to face Her…"

"That was partly sheer anger…I can stand if I've something to hold on to. And take hesitant steps. But I shan't be taking you to the Gather Dance" he added facetiously, grinning.

"You can take me to the Gather if you like" she said.

He looked round sharply; and she coloured slightly.

She shrugged.

"You get paid more than me and can afford more bubbly pies?" she quipped weakly.

"Kit I – I like you an awful lot. And I don't want to play games" said Horgey, seriously. "In fact, I'm wondering if it would be more appropriate if I asked for another apprentice assistant."

Kit stopped and came round to the front of the chair to face him.

"Horgey, I was sweet on T'rin for a long time, and I guess I was also sweet on rose-coloured memories of him as much as the real thing. But…I've got over that. I – I like you a lot too, but I don't want to rush anything. I'd like to spend more time with you socially as well as professionally."

Horgey nodded, his eyes on her face.

"That seems like a good idea" he said "But…. What would your parents think of any…..romance... though? Might they not disapprove? Me being reinstated is one thing….I'm concerned what they'll think"

Kit giggled.

"I'm not sure I'd appreciate you thinking about kissing them, so what they think doesn't matter!" she said.

"Kit!"

She sobered.

"I think they like you. I don't have to marry for alliances; my grandfather is knee deep in daughters and granddaughters. They'll let me pick and choose; and they'd be glad if I picked someone who doesn't rubbish my years of Harper training as a 'nice little hobby'. But I guess they'll want me to be really sure. So I want to make sure I AM really sure. And, after all, so do you need to be. I'm still growing up; you might not like me when I've finished it."

He smiled.

"Somehow I think you'll always be sweet, and true and kind and clever and thoroughly sassy" he said. "But we shall wait and see how it goes. You're such a beautiful girl; so full of fire and animation!"

"Shards, you MUST fancy me" she gurgled her delightful little chuckle "After having a Weyr full of Impresses females to compare me to!"

He shrugged.

"There's a sort of spark I don't feel for any of them….I don't mean desire, though you are….it's more than that, a – a connection. I can see from the way you almost finish my sentences for me and when I ask for things you have what I need almost before I've asked."

She flushed.

"Maybe it's the firelizards" she said. "Flute likes Cadenza."

"Flute likes any female that doesn't try to boss him" said Horgey.

She chuckled.

"There is that!" she said.

By tacit consent, Horgey and Kitiara spoke no more of their tentative attraction to each other; Kitiara had grown up a lot since her violent infatuation for T'rin, and blushed fierily when she recalled what a nuisance she had made of herself to him! Her feelings for Horgey were deep friendship that was deepening into awareness. Horgey himself was concerned that her feelings towards him might stem purely from pity; but looking back carefully over all she had said and the way she acted he could see nothing that suggested that she pitied him. She treated him with the same practical consideration that he had found in the Weyr; and he appreciated that.

In the meantime, they were Journeyman and apprentice in class, and friends outside of classes; and to increase their social life Kit started pushing him on walks around the Hold, to places she had grown up knowing. That it was winter mattered not one jot; though their walks must needs be curtailed, for Horgey's lack of mobility meant that he chilled quickly, even under the quilts Kit loaded him with!

The winter landscape had its own beauty, not the stark, forbidding beauty of the High Reaches; but vistas in pastels, with long mauve shadows, the often leaden skies tinted with roses at dusk and dawn, or coloured like a fading bruise when snow was due. And here and there, frost left gossamer lace in ice-edged leaves, forming patterns in frozen puddles. The nearby stream was particularly lovely at this time of turn when frost had touched it overnight, the stark reeds a silver filigree along its banks.

"I'm glad I'm only halt, not blind" said Horgey, deeply moved. "I'd hate to miss out on all this. I need a xylophone to make a tune for the frost, all tinkley and staccato."

Kit laughed happily.

"I'm glad it inspires you" she said "I'm not clever enough to write tunes, not proper ones."

"Nor am I, really" confessed Horgey. "Though I've studied the craft under T'rin's stringent lectures. It just brought something to mind and I was loath to let it go. I thought if I put something rough together, T'rin might pick up the idea and improve on it."

"What a splendid idea!" said Kit, much struck. "That could mean that maybe my occasional twiddles won't be wasted if he knew what I was thinking when I scrawled them down if he'd do the same for me. It's a shame to waste fresh ideas for the want of the skill in developing them."

Horgey nodded.

"I know he'd feel uncomfortable about claiming authorship, but I guess if it were authored 'Harperweyr' or 'Dormitory' it could be a tacitly acknowledged joint effort."

She nodded.

"It'll be mostly T'rin of course, just taking our ideas as a starting point; but he's so scrupulously fair, I know what you mean about him being likely to refuse to claim authorship!" she said. "And so long as the music happens, it doesn't really matter. I'd be very happy for my twiddles to come out as proper music authored 'Harperweyr'. After all, the more I hear of High Reaches Weyr the more I'd like to move there. I – I guess a lot might depend though on what happens between us; and if you plan to return."

Horgey nodded.

"I want to go back there. I suppose it could be embarrassing if we fell apart; though if we adopt weyr attitudes, where affairs happen, it could be easier, for there are rarely recriminations or uncomfortable atmospheres. And at least the Weyr has a laid back view of lovemates, and there'd be less gossip and ill natured talk if we were still making up our minds."

Kit brightened.

"That's true" she said cheerfully. "Well, we shall see how it goes."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

T'rin had been learning recently to fly _Between_ and came on a visit to his friends, bubbling happily about T'lana's triplets, his foster siblings, and about his own new daughter Tylessa.

"TRIPLETS?" said Kit, shocked. "Does she think she has to lay them a clutch at a time to keep up with the hatchings at High Reaches?"

T'rin roared with laughter over that sally, though it was not the first time clutches had been mentioned in connection with the little weyrwoman's excess of fecundity. Garlan, Talarra and Sarelana – the last named for T'lana's foster father – were all doing well, and at nearly three sevendays old, Calla thought them all likely to live and thrive. Tylessa was just a few days younger than them, though T'rin did confess that, when well-wrapped in furs, he could not tell any of the four babies apart, even his own daughter or the only boy in the group!

The boys laughed, and Kit cried shame on him!

T'rin elected to stay to visit the Gather arranged under the aegis of Fort Hold; and Kit and Horgey had the delight of watching him depress the pretensions of Asrina.

The girl made a beeline for the handsome Blue Rider, and coo'd as best as she knew how.

"Oh Harper Blue Rider!" she said, with a simper "I'd do ANYTHING for a man like you!"

T'rin glanced at her, and up at the watery wintry sun in a calculating way.

"Well, girl, you know the stable at the Gather field?"

"Oh yes, Blue Rider!"

"Be in the hayloft with your clothes off in an hour and I'll try to fit you in between my duties and my other lovers" said T'rin, blandly.

"Oh Blue Rider! What sort of girl do you think I am?" said Asrina coyly.

T'rin looked surprised.

"I thought we'd already ascertained that and were just discussing the when, the where and how much."

Asrina recoiled.

"How dare you?" she cried "I can't believe you've just insulted me so! I have Rank, you know!"

T'rin turned to a grinning Horgey.

"Y'know, brother mine, either you've some strange loving wenches here, or you need to teach the paying students that singing requires the mouth to be opened more than the legs."

Asrina spluttered!

Horgey fought to get himself under contol.

"I'm so sorry about the misunderstanding, T'rin" he said in as bland a tone as he could manage. "Asrina, I wonder if you might not be better to return to Dunca's cot if you can't even get to the Gather without propositioning every proddy dragonrider that crosses your path."

T'rin grinned an acknowledgement of the comment!

Asrina gave both young men her best fulminating stare; and as Horgey had made only suggestion not given her an order she flounced off towards the Gather in high dudgeon.

"You're a bad man, T'rin" said Kit.

He shrugged.

"And did I miscall her?" he asked.

"No" Kit acknowledged.

T'rin kissed her on the cheek.

"I hope you two will be very happy, you know" he said.

"Is it obvious?" Horgey was shocked.

"Only to people that know you both" said T'rin. "Pardon me not kissing you, Horgey; you're not as pretty as Kit."

Horgey grinned, relaxed these days about such teasing.

"That's all right, you're not my type either, T'rin" he returned "You're far too much of a weyrslut."

T'rin chuckled.

"Are you happy to be a father, T'rin?" asked Kit, curiously.

"Oh! Yes! It's a bit strange, they seem to be both more and less trouble than newly hatched firelizards" said the Blue Rider. "I guess I didn't notice it so much when they were only brothers and sisters being born – though Rogan and Rofel were pretty special, because R'gar and T'lana still loved me even though they had them – but I feel quite nervous with Tylessa in case I drop her or anything. Daft, isn't it? I've been heaving the twins and Felgarra around since forever!"

"Yes" said Kit. "It is daft, I mean."

"No, of course it's not, not at all" contradicted Horgey. "I find the whole idea of having children pretty scary; so much responsibility to give them a good start in life, so many ways you can let them down."

T'rin nodded seriously.

"You're quite right" he said "But Allessa's a good mother, and there's my whole fosterkin to muck in too to make sure she has a happy childhood. I guess Tylessa will have as good a start as anyone might get. Weyrbred children get a lot of loving without the spoiling or mollycoddling."

"And you picked a name that will contract too, of course" grinned Horge.

"Of course!" said T'rin.

Kit and Horgey put to T'rin the idea they had discussed of his working on initial tune ideas to make them into viable music.

"It seems hardly fair to pull your ideas about" objected the Harper Rider.

"It's no different to working variations on established pieces" said Horgey "And would give us the vicarious satisfaction of having something of ours live on, if a competent – more than competent – tunecrafter could do anything with them. Otherwise all our half-ideas die before they're even fully shelled because we've not got the skill to form them."

T'rin bit into another bubbly pie – his fifth, if anyone was counting – and nodded, rather crummily.

"I see your point. All right, people, give me everything you've scribbled and any notes about what was going through your heads, what mood you were looking for; and I'll see what I can do" he said. "I might put several together as a compilation as, oh I don't know, 'the apprentice's workbook' or some such title; others I might get inspired by, or feel fit in with twiddles of my own. Some I might not use. Is that all right?"

"Eminently" said Horgey. "If they're no good at all, there's no point perpetuating rubbish."

"Some might not be poor, but not quite suitable yet" said T'rin. "I don't think you'd submit me something bad, or let Kit; but the moment sometimes needs to be right. Oh, talking of moments being right, is it a good time to ask if you've finished making the xylophone yet? Kullana bade me ask most respectfully, pretty please, with sugar on the top."

Horgey grinned.

"She got that polite?"

"Pretty much. Well, she was hopping around on one foot and abusing me roundly to admonish me not to forget, but her comments to pass on to you are pretty much as I reported" said T'rin cheerfully.

"Well, such politeness is to be rewarded" said Horgey "for I finished it a couple of days ago, and the varnish should be well dried by now. It's a two-bank one, the chromatic notes on the upper bank, a full three octaves and I didn't ask where the sponge-wood came from to cushion the metal notes as it only grows on the Southern continent. I hope the weight of the thing won't weigh poor Renpeth down – it's pretty hefty in its carry case, and those pies you've been eating are going to add to the load!" he added in mock concern.

T'rin grinned.

"I expect the poor little fellow will manage somehow" he said cheerfully, refusing to be drawn!

T'rin suggested that they spent some of the Gather sitting in on the Gather court.

"As Harpers we're required to settle disputes and such" he said "Watching an old hand like Lord Groghe at work will be a good education. I'm surprised Master Robinton doesn't set it as part of the curriculum."

"Most people aren't as keen to work on a Gather day as you, T'rin, that's why; he'd have mutiny" said Kit, mildly. "He is good though, is Grandfather, and he can be quite entertaining when he gets irritated by idiots."

Horgey nodded acquiescence. He did not think T'rin needed much educating in how to settle disputes – but was grateful if it was a tactful way of suggesting he extend his own expertise!

In fact, T'rin was actually eager to see Lord Groghe in action; he had learned that the old Lord Holder had something of a reputation for practical, if not always conventional solutions to problems, an implacable impartiality and a taste for making punishments fit the crime. And as H'llon was starting to print more things, T'rin had a hazy idea that if the judgements of different Lords Holders should be published and widely distributed, it might make them look at each other's ideas of justice and come up with some more unified plan.

It was worth thinking about, anyway. He took notes. The logicators would be interested if nobody else was.

The first case was a simple one of drunken disorderly behaviour; the fellow involved had insulted and then thrown up all over Master Domick. The master had not to appear since there was no dispute over guilt, the culprit admitting it freely and gloomily in his painful sobriety of the morning after.

"Twenty four hours drudging for the Harper Hall to commence immediately in sound of the youngest apprentices practising on horns" judged Lord Groghe.

T'rin winced.

The thought of a hangover during horn practice – which could be excruciating enough without the addition of crapulous miseries – was calculated to discourage any repeat offence!

The second case was brought by a cotholder with a large enough cot to employ several hands, a Holding almost large enough to warrant being a Minor Hold. He brought forward a wall-eyed fellow with a vacant look.

"He been interfering with the ovines, Me Lord" said the Cotholder, named Maler, succinctly. "I got witnesses."

"As in…." Lord Groghe tailed off delicately.

"Ar, thass roight" nodded the cotholder. "And most of un in lamb, and one got roight upset and miscarried twins her did."

Lord Groghe winced.

"Did you do this?" he asked the man.

"Huh?"

"I seen him at ut, me Lord" said another hand.

"Hmm" said Lord Groghe. "I'm not even sure he understands the charge….do you realise, fellow, that the loss of the twins represents a tidy theft of stock as well as the loss of value of the other ovines if they have lost weight through distress?"

The culprit stared vacantly at him, mouth half agape.

Lord Groghe suppressed a shudder. It was plain enough to see why ovines were the only females this one might get any joy out of! Plainly he had not got a clue what he had done wrong! Lord Groghe grimaced.

"Well, Maler, I think the best thing to do is to give you compensation from the Hold fund; and take" he consulted his notes "- Tosk here into the main Hold out of temptation's way: I'll take your fine from his anticipated wages. And I'll keep him drudging within the Hold. Tosk, do you understand? You can't be trusted near animals."

Tosk hawked and spat, to the disgust of the onlookers.

"Ar, ovines wriggle better nor wenches" he said.

Groghe shut his eyes and composed himself.

"Take him away" he said to a guard "And keep him WELL away from any of my stock!"

The next case was a plaint from two cotholders over which side of the river formed the boundary between their respective lands.

"He been fishing and it's MY river!" declared one.

"The boundary is YOUR side, I be entitled!" shouted the other.

Groghe frowned.

"Are there any deeds or documents to the land?" he asked the Hold Harper, seated at his side.

The Hold Harper was a grizzled journeyman with acidulated features and an air of competence.

"None so far as I am aware, My Lord" he said, carefully. "When the plaint was first lodged I went through all the documents I could find, but to no avail; only the mention of the founding of the cotholds on each side of the river. No mention of one bank or another forming a boundary line."

Groghe nodded.

"If YOU found none, then there are none lodged in our archives here. Have either of you two cotholders got any documents?"

Both men shook their heads, each glaring at the other as though it were his fault.

Groghe nodded.

"Very well, I will make a ruling that shall be inscribed, and a copy to each of you as well as one for my own records" he said "For when a son of mine has the dealing with sons of yours."

As the entire families of each had turned out and were glowering at each other from opposite sides of the spectators' staging this was not likely to be an idle speculation. Two small boys of about eight turns each bore the bruises that spoke of a bitter boyish fight. Groghe went on,

"And your boys will listen to this too most carefully because they will be bound by it! I say that the boundary runs down the middle of the river. Both may fish it; a fish hooked on one side is not under trespass if it strays to the other once it is on the line. And if I hear of any line cutting or trap spoiling to the opposite side, I will withdraw all fishing rights from the culprit. Do I make myself clear?"

There were some guilty shuffles over the latter part of the ruling! However, both cotholders nodded, and on being glared at by the Hold Harper muttered their thanks for Lord Groghe's fairness!

"He is good, isn't he?" said Horgey in the brief recess that followed this case.

"Yes, a treat to see in action" grinned T'rin. "I WISH I had Geriana to record his expression over the ovine case, it was a priceless series of grimaces!"

"What was all that about the ovines?" asked Kit "What exactly had the man Tosk done?"

T'rin and Horgey exchanged glances.

"She's your girl, you explain" said T'rin hastily.

"Coward" said Horgey amicably. "Er, well, it's like this, Kit: he, er, he'd been doing with the ovines what a man normally does with a woman."

Kit stared aghast as that sank in.

"EUYEW!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, it was the Ewes caused his downfall" quipped T'rin.

Kit thumped him.

"And you brought THAT on yourself with that awful pun" said Horgey unsympathetically to the Blue Rider.

Next up after the recess was the Holder of a Seahold that produced salt as well as its fishing profits.

"My Lord, some of the salt I make was stolen, and I believe it can only be one of three people that did it; and that was the men who were bagging it. That's my own steward, who I hesitate to accuse; and these two itinerant workers. And apart from wanting my salt back, I don't want to condemn an innocent man by refusing him a Warrant of honesty as well as the guilty one. And I haven't any admissions, so I've brought the case to you."

Lord Groghe did not look terribly gratified; though he did grunt,

"Your feelings to preserve the good name of the innocent do you credit; I'll remember that. I take it you've questioned them all?"

"Yes, My Lord. Whichever it is must have hidden it, for I've searched all their sleeping areas; in fact my steward suggested it to clear himself. But these two shared a cavern and the salt was nowhere in their room or his."

"He might have suggested it to shift suspicion if he took it and hid it" whispered Kit.

"Or just because he felt injured at being suspected. Shh!" whispered back T'rin.

Groghe was frowning in concentration.

"With neither witnesses nor one prepared to admit to his deed this becomes quite troublesome" he growled.

T'rin rose.

"Excuse me, My Lord, would it be impolitic of me to make a suggestion or two?"

Groghe looked at him, visibly brightening.

"I'll happily hear a dragonman any time" he said. "It's young T'rin, isn't it? T'lana's fosterling?"

"Yes sir, that's right" said T'rin.

Groghe's face cleared completely and he gave T'rin a beatific smile.

"A logicator for such a case is right welcome, you and any of your unnaturally clever friends."

T'rin grinned, and led Kitiara wheeling Horgey up to the Dais.

"Seaholder, if they were bagging salt, they'd be stripped to the waist and no convenient way of carrying it out save in a belt pouch, am I correct?"

"Yes, Blue Rider" said the Holder politely, if a little dubiously. "I can't ban a man from wearing his pouch, he may not trust his valuables to any other man."

"Very well; My Lord, there are three witnesses who I beg you will question under duress" he grinned as Groghe started to protest. "I suggest you take and empty all their pouches now, in front of all, that their possessions can be seen not to be interfered with; turn them inside out and beat them hard onto a cloth. By tasting what comes out, the one who carried salt in his pouch will be revealed. The pouches are our witnesses."

Groghe slapped his knee and gave a bark of laughter.

"Excellent! Perfect! And so simple. As most perfect things are. You logicators are a real boon, m'boy, have you any available for placing out? I'd like one on hand all the time if you have."

"Most of us are Impressed or in a second craft, sir" said T'rin "But you have only to send Merga with a note, or a drum message, and one of us will come as quickly as possible. Which, emergencies our end excepting, will be immediately. And if there's a real emergency YOUR end, sooner than immediately, _Between_ time to the instant of you sending."

"Excellent, excellent!" approved Lord Groghe. "Will you sit in on this case?"

"If it pleases you, My Lord" said T'rin, politely. "We were here to learn from you – your judgements are famously fair, so we're picking your brains, and I've notes to take back to the Weyr too."

Lord Groghe roared with laughter.

"Well, I'll not deny being flattered" he said "Though I got some of my lessons from Robinton – you ask him some day to tell you how come a wall has two sides!" he laughed again "And we can all learn from each other, hmm?"

"Absolutely!" said T'rin enthusiastically. "Only a foolish man thinks that he has learned all there is to learn!"

The Lord Holder accordingly demanded the belt pouches of all the accused.

"Ar, we'll all have salt in un, acoss we wuz workin' with ut" said one. "That don't prove nuffink!"

Groghe glanced at T'rin who was unperturbed.

"All will have salt on the outside; not deep inside" said the young Dragonrider. "That is why they are to be turned inside out. If none taste of salt, something else was used to transport and we go further. We have all day."

The belt pouches were duly emptied, turned inside-out, and beaten.

Lord Groghe pulled a wry face at the piles of assorted dust and fluff; but he was not a man to shirk his duty. He moistened a different finger for each pouch, dipped it into the grey pile and touched it to his tongue.

He took a long swallow of wine a drudge waited to proffer to him; and he nodded thanks to the elderly woman for her initiative. Then he pointed at one of the itinerants.

"This is the man who filled his pouch with salt to secrete it. If you will tell where you hid it, fellow, I shall be more lenient with you" the Lord Holder said, regarding the man sternly with his protuberant blue eyes.

The man, who was the one who had protested that their pouches would all be salty, gave T'rin a poisonous look.

"Fardling dragonman; too clever by half!"

T'rin shrugged.

"Lord Groghe could equally have asked for the favour of having my dragon read your minds to find the culprit. As he can also do to find where you hid it. Why not come clean?"

The man shrugged but looked scared at the idea of having his mind read.

"It's in the little cave down the coast a hundred paces or so" he said "Where the fellis and numbweed and such are prepared."

"Excellent decision" said Lord Groghe, dryly. "This Holder suffers no loss, but you shall pay him a fine for his inconvenience, which he may take in unpaid labour for three months from you; or the marks in lieu and you work for me instead. And you will have no warranty nor any endorsement to any warranty you might already hold. Honesty is the best policy; you gained yourself nothing but a bad reputation."

The Seaholder decided to take the marks in lieu; rather than have a dishonest man who also harboured a grudge for having been caught!

"Can Renpeth read minds?" asked Horgey.

"All dragons are telepathic" said T'rin "and can talk to anyone and gain some knowledge from their minds. Golds and Bronzes do it best, Greens can be a bit too flighty to concentrate or to put two and two together from disjointed thoughts. Renpeth COULD find out; but I'm not sure he'd much appreciate me asking it of him. Searching through the thoughts of a man filled with resentment would hurt his feelings; dragons don't like being feared and disliked. Also, possessions are not important to dragons at all; he might have difficulty looking for something he has little understanding of. But the thief didn't know that."

Horgey grinned.

"In other words, you bluffed it."

T'rin shrugged.

"Sure. Sometimes you have to."

"I've still a lot to learn about being a harper."

T'rin laughed.

"I think that's you have a lot to learn about being a rogue. But then, we all have a lot to learn – all our lives. Every experience helps" he said. "Want to listen to any more or shall we go find something to eat?"

"Go find something to eat" said Kit "I'm starving."

"Ah, these apprentices! Always thinking of their stomachs!" grinned T'rin.

There was a brief altercation on who had scoffed the most bubbly pies earlier; and the three friends went off amicably in search of the rest of their friends and a gather pie stall!


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

T'rin stayed on at the Gather with his other friends for the dancing – he had high hopes of winning the dancing competition this turn – while Kit pushed Horgey back down to the Harper Hall. They came, on the way, upon a muddy and confused pile of boys which resolved itself into four lads thoughtfully stuffing mud down the tunic of a fifth.

"HRHM!" Horgey cleared his throat loudly. "And a most unseemly scrum for any passers by to see! Now, let me see, do we have any boys under that mud or are you all turned into mud-rodies?"

Kit chuckled. The small water creature he described dug industriously in mud for the minute crustacea that formed the greater part of its diet.

The boys untangled themselves and stood to attention before Horgey. Four of them looked distinctly smug beneath their carefully subdued and muddy expressions; the fifth was filled with baffled resentment and fury.

"I see" said Horgey.

"I suppose you want to know what happened, sir?" said Braid. "It's quite simple."

"Yes, most of the things that come out of your fertile imagination are, young Braid" said Horgey, equably. "Very well, tell me your version and then I'll tell you what I think really happened."

Braid gave him a faintly reproachful look.

"Well, sir, it was like this. It started as a mud throwing contest, you know? Because of the thaw and being lots of mud…but it just got a little out of hand."

"Ingenious" said Horgey dryly "And not too over embroidered. A way to deflect all official notice save a dressing down for fighting. NOW! This is my interpretation" he swept his eyes over all of them. "I'd be no Harper if I'd not heard Vaek carolling rude songs all around the Gather about Gavel. And then Vaek leaves, whistling jauntily and obviously alone. Naturally, Gavel is not happy about this and takes a shortcut across the fields to waylay him in this most convenient ambush site in the bend of the road. Unfortunately for Gavel, Braid, Gwetul and Timmis had already left early and prepared to ambush the ambusher. One would hope that they kept nominally in the right by letting him leap Vaek first" he added "Ah, yes, I see the flicker of smugness there; and then all four proceeded to let Gavel know what they thought of a boy of fifteen or more turns beating on a boy of ten. Is that approximately correct?"

The four conspirators exchanged looks.

"Sir, we think it's a lovely fiction" said Braid "And we stick by our original story."

Horgey gave a smile of approval.

"I'm glad you boys would rather keep things amongst yourself. Gavel? Do you want to comment?"

The boy shook his head.

"No, sir, it's like Braid said."

"Very well, water rations for the five of you for…oh, five days for fighting; and each one of you to spend half an hour telling your life story to the others. Cut along now and bath; you're disgusting objects."

The boys ran off, glad to have got off relatively lightly.

"That was clever" said Kit "Making him open up as part of the collective punishment."

"I wasn't sure Braid had the maturity to do it all without some help" Horgey confessed. "In Gavel's shoes I'd have been grateful deep down for being covered for, but also resentful and suspicious and – well, pretty mixed up. T'rin might have got me talking; but even he might not. And T'rin is a genius; I'm not sure that Braid is."

Kit nodded.

"He's quite perspicacious, however, now he looks beyond looking for slights on his birth. Are you going to talk to Gavel as well?" she asked.

Horgey thought.

"I don't know; I may not have to, though he may like an older man as a confidant, to lay all his troubles on to make them get better. I'll watch how it goes; and see if I need to engineer a situation where I can leave the opportunity to talk open" he said.

Horgey did not need to manufacture an excuse to seek confidences from Gavel; the boy came to his room, rather hesitantly.

"Sir, Braid said you helped him cope with stuff; he thought if I talked to you, you might be able to help me" he said.

"It's quite possible I might be able to" said Horgey. "Very few problems are insurmountable with application and good will. Sit down my boy – no, wait, pour us both a mug of klah, there's a kettle on the stove, it's a little overbrewed but palatable enough and there's a pipkin of cream on the windowsill to add to it if you like it. THEN come and sit down and start at the beginning."

Gavel did as he was bid; cream was a luxury in klah and he poured it in to both mugs with a heavy hand. He sat hunched up, cradling the mug between his hands.

"The beginning?" he queried. "I – I don't quite know…."

Horgey nodded, smiling encouragingly.

"Why not go back to the last time you were happy – if there ever was such a time?" he suggested.

Gavel's eyes looked haunted and he sipped his klah almost without seeming to taste it.

"There was. It's such a long time ago, sometimes I wonder if I imagined it. I was about six or seven turns old when my parents died; there was a fire, an accident with a flamethrower I think…I was too young to properly understand the whispers and half sentences. And then I went to live with my aunt and uncle in their cot, who didn't really want me….they already had five children, older than me: so I became their drudge. And I wasn't allowed to make music any more, and even though I didn't feel like singing any more, I had to have music….if they caught me even drumming with my fingers to a tune in my head I was beaten because drudges don't waste time on music."

Horgey's eyes sparkled in indignation.

"Wickedness!" he said. "But they let you come here eventually?"

Gavel shook his head.

"No, sir; when I was thirteen or so – I never had any birthing day celebration, so I'm not actually sure exactly – I ran away. It took me nearly a turn to find a Journeyman who'd test me, and who believed in me enough to get me an apprenticeship. And then" his voice faltered "And then the dream became a nightmare, when I discovered how much I didn't know – and an ignorant boy of fourteen or fifteen, almost a man, in a class of ten, eleven and twelve-turn-olds and knowing less than them is pretty quickly the butt of jokes and jibes. And though I was stung to work hard I – I also started lashing out. All the anger from all the turns just came out; and it became habit to put kids down before they got the chance to pt me down."

Horgey nodded sympathetically.

"And little boys can be pretty cruel without even realising it" he said. "I half encouraged the songs, you know: to bring you to a point where you could talk to someone. I hoped it would be a lad like Braid who is a well-meaning young imp who has had, as you know, his own problems."

Gavel nodded; he was crying.

"He's been very decent. But – well, you're grown up."

Horgey nodded.

"Your aunt and uncle sound the sort of people who don't set out to be wicked; but are too stupid and insular to see beyond themselves and their immediate family. With Thread a constant danger I'm afraid it's an all too common attitude. They felt resentful of you, and felt that you should earn your keep for being foisted onto them – and were too limited to consider beyond their annoyance to the bewildered grief of a bereaved little boy. And I suppose your cousins took their tone from their parents?"

Gavel nodded.

"They ordered me about and clouted me if I was slow or was trying to avoid a beating for not being quick enough about another cousin's business; they didn't care for each other and each expected me to put his or her orders first."

"Lovely family" commented Horgey.

"Yeah, a real bundle of laughs" said Gavel. "It was a shock; my parents loved me…." Two big tears welled up and he sniffed hard.

"My dear boy, don't hold back on my account" said Horgey. "You've never been allowed to grieve – in there is a six turn old who's never been allowed to cry for a perfectly legitimate grief. C'mon lad, you can let it come."

And come it did.

Horgey let him sob himself into gentle hiccoughs.

"You've made the first step to rebuilding yourself, you know" the journeyman said. "You've told boys who will understand and be indignant on your behalf; and who will put themselves out to see that you catch up. They'll also introduce you to Ferry's group of hooligans, who will bring you on – if you'll put in the extra work – to a level close to your age group, their own level. I can speak to Ferry too, if you'd like. I've known him since I was an apprentice, before the accident."

"Would you really, sir? I- I'd be afraid to…I know how he despises bullies…"

"He also realises that many of us who have bullied usually have reasons that make us act in such an unreasonable way" said Horgey. "Yes, lad, I used to be a bully – worse than you, I assure you! But I was helped out by another boy, Ferry's friend, now a Journeyman himself: and I had a second chance. You get to have a second chance before you get yourself in as much trouble as I got myself into; use it well and don't let yourself down!"

"No, sir, I shan't! I can't believe that you were a bully, though, I always thought you were a soft touch!"

Horgey grinned.

"Oh, I'm not afraid to hand out discipline if I think it's needed! Like you lot being on water rations – it's a matter of principle to discourage fighting. It brings the Hall into disrepute it outsiders see it. But I am also aware that excessive punishment can be a form of bullying too; and that Masters are not immune from the disease of unfairness. And usually the crabbier masters have THEIR reasons for being crabby too; which are none of your or my business. Generations of often thick-headed, naughty boys must take its toll on the most equable of characters; and it's easy to assume that an older boy is behind because he is lazy, rather than looking for other explanations, because in nine cases out of ten it's just because he is lazy."

Gavel brightened.

"Then I guess I can forgive old Morshal – er, Master Morshal, sorry sir" as Horgey cleared his throat meaningfully "It was his sarcastic comments I always felt led to the little boys picking on me too; he kind of made it an acceptable thing to do."

Horgey shrugged.

"I'll not dispute the truth of that" he said "Teaching slower learners is hard; I have a bit of an aptitude for it so it doesn't much bother me, but clever men sometimes find it hard to break a task they know well down for those of little knowledge; and it's easier to get irritable if you know you're not doing a job well"

"Steady on, sir, you'll make me feel sorry for him and that's surely against tradition!" Gavel ventured a weak sally.

"Oh, absolutely" said Horgey, smiling. "Seriously, Gavel, I'll study through any lesson you want more help with in your spare time. You've pulled yourself up well in just the turn you've been here: at least you didn't give up the way I did!"

"YOU gave up?"

"I found myself out of my depth and bullied: like you I took the bully's role as easier. But I'm not as clever or as talented as you, Gavel; and I couldn't catch up on my own. I also got in with a couple of other bullies, which didn't help; we egged each other on. Since my accident I have pulled myself up with the help of friends and even learned enough to make journeyman; but I could not have done it without them. With the help of friends, I have every expectation that you'll walk the tables in a very short few turns. Now, you may use my Necessary to go and wash your face; and my door is always open to you, expect me to be grumpy if you need help in the middle of the night."

Gavel gave a weak smile at the last comment.

He was so grateful!

Shortly after this the Turnover postings were to be made: and Master Robinton spoke to Horgey.

"I shan't keep you in suspense; I am going to confirm you as Journeyman" he said. "Do you wish to stay here, or return to the Weyr?"

"Sir, would you think me ungrateful if I said that I'd like to consider returning to the Weyr?" asked Horgey "Only there are things happening here…"

"Your romance with Kitiara?"

Horgey flushed.

"I'm beginning to think the whole Harper Hall knew about it before we did" he said. Robinton laughed.

"Oh, I know the signs; I doubt many others know" he said. "It's a more solid looking relationship than her crush on T'rin; if she wants to accompany you to the Weyr, I'll not oppose it. At least she can continue her studies there now."

Horgey pulled a wry face.

"Of course, if she does, with her heritage and bravery it's likely she'll Impress; and I'll have to stand by and grin and bear it every time her dragon rises."

"And can you do that and still love her?" asked the Masterharper.

Horgey nodded.

"Oh yes, of course! I know it's nothing personal….well, it's very personal but not necessarily personal mentally…. I suppose part of me is afraid she'd find a rider she could love more. And it would be no sort of love on my part not to let her go if that happened, would it?"

Robinton laid a fatherly hand on the youth's shoulder.

"Horgey, that was the biggest thing I ever heard a man say" he said, seriously. "And I say this to you: Kit has played at love before; I think she's sensible enough to know her own mind by now. And too sensible to mistake the violence of dragon-driven passions for a replacement for true love."

Horgey nodded.

"I think so too, really" he said "But….well, you know."

Robinton nodded.

"There's still that touch of low self worth within you" he said "And no amount of telling you how well you've done and how proud you've made me of you and how glad I am that T'rin bullied me into reinstating you will ever dispel that. Only time will give you self confidence. It will come though; of that I am sure!"

Horgey nodded.

"I hope so…. I don't think I'm doing too badly. Apart from with Lesara."

"You've done very well, so far. Never mind her; do NOT dwell on the negative. Nobody could have done more think on your slow boys who have, on the whole, pulled ahead of their peer group; Braid has gone from being a flaming nuisance to being a model pupil; Vaek has quieted down…."

"That was nothing to do with me, sir"

"No? Who asked Ferry to sort him out? Well then!" said the Masterharper as Horgey wriggled his shoulders deprecatingly. "And Gavel's a changed boy too. Forget Lesara! Some people you just can't do anything with! And I hear – unofficially mind! – that even Lord Larad wants to strangle her!"

Horgey grinned.

"Well, it's not so much Kit, because if she forgot me it wouldn't last if you wanted her to wait: I just want to watch over Gavel a little longer" he said "He trusts me and comes to me for advice. Leaving abruptly might just shake the beginnings of his self confidence. But if you're satisfied with me, I should like to go back to High Reaches soon. No disrespect to you or any of the Masters" he said apologetically "But I'm not looked at askance as a freak there."

Robinton nodded.

"Alas, it is human nature to fear, and therefore denigrate any kind of disability, mental or physical. High Reaches Weyr is, I think, a very special place."

"WE think so, Masterharper."

"And there you have it – 'WE' you say. A place that engenders such a sense of belonging is a healthy community. I'll keep you – what, another five or six sevendays?"

Horgey nodded.

"That would be ideal. T'rin tells me that Esruth is now fully mature, so it won't be long before Tamalenth rises – L'rilly's been inhibiting her to be with her weyrmate" he explained "And there might then be an egg for Kitiara. It – well, I think she'd be a good Green Rider, and we've got enough in the Harperweyr as you say to continue her studies!"

Robinton smiled.

"I've come to like you, Horgey" he said "And we shall miss you: but you are right. Your place is in a Weyr. Your face lights up when you speak of it. Oh, Ferry is to Walk; would you like to escort him?"

Horgey grinned.

"Would I just!" he said "Who else is supporting him?"

"Kister: he arrived a couple of hours ago from his current posting just to see the listings – just like Kister!"

Horgey sought out Kister; they had not been on good terms the last time they had met, but evidently the Masterharper had spoken to the young Journeyman. Or maybe T'rin had; Horgey could not guess. But in any case, Kister greeted him with a grin and held out his hand. And laughed at Horgey's expression of disgust at the dead rodie he had palmed.

As Kister had a reputation for playing practical jokes on his friends more than on enemies, Horgey took it the right way; and dropped the creature down Kister's tunic cheerfully.

They were soon firm friends.

And Ferry wept with joy as they escorted him to the Journeyman table to the time-honoured chant 'Walk, Ferry, Walk!'


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

The next major event to take place was the Hatching at Fort Weyr, where Teffie, Kitiara's sister, was a candidate for the Golden Queen egg!

When a Green dragon swooped down next to the Harper Hall, outside Horgey's ground floor quarters, naturally he and Kitiara went out to greet the Rider.

"Hullo! Are you Lady Kitiara by any chance?" asked the Rider "Only you've the right colour hair."

Kit touched her short effulgent curls.

"I'm APPRENTICE Kitiara" she said "I dropped the 'Lady' you know."

The Green Rider grinned.

"At least there's some about as can drop the titles to get on with other jobs!" he said. "Hatching's imminent; I was sent for you. Was your friend coming?" he glanced at Horgey "'Cos I'm not sure er, how to accommodate the chair."

"You're K'star, aren't you?" asked Horgey, seeing Kit give him a hopeful look.

The man looked pleased.

"That's right. How did you know?"

"I've heard about you from T'rin….he says Ninth is strong, could she lift me in the chair with her front feet?"

K'star looked surprised.

"That wouldn't bother you?"

"I'm not bothered by heights" said Horgey "And I trust her not to drop me."

"I didn't mean that….some people get nervous of the business end of dragons."

"Foolishness" said Horgey. "I'm sure Ninth is very careful…and she can pick up my thoughts of discomfort if she accidentally squeezes because the chair fells awkward, can't you beautiful one?"

_"I like him"_ broadcast Ninth.

K'star chuckled.

"Flirt" he said to her, out loud. "Well, Harper, if you're fine with that…." He helped Kit to scramble up over Ninth's politely extended forepaw, thanking the dragon as she did so; then K'star climbed up behind her. Ninth carefully cupped Horgey, chair and all, between her claws.

_"Comfortable, Harper?"_ she asked inside his head.

_**"Perfectly, thank you; you are considerate, Ninth"**_ Horgey felt quite comfortable with draconic telepathy; Renpeth would occasionally chat with him, and even Mirrith; and he had found that when he was lonely and a little bored – a rare enough thing in the Weyr, but not unknown before he had felt himself fitting in so well – that a friendly dragon would often pick this up and pass on some news to him. He 'heard' Ninth make some private comment to K'star, though what it was was shielded from him. Then they were off!

The flight was a little more precarious than strapped to dragonback; but Horgey was unafraid. Ninth would feel if he felt insecure and could close her fist about his actual body. It was actually rather exhilarating! And indeed, all too short, the flight Straight little more than up and a long glide down into Fort Weyr, right above the Hold and Harper Hall.

Ninth placed Horgey gently down in the Bowl and kit and K'star slid off.

"Thank you for taking such good care of me, Ninth" said Horgey.

"Ninth was wondering if you were within age, Journeyman" asked K'star.

"Within age?" Horgey was puzzled.

"For Impression….she says you've power."

Horgey blinked, a little nonplussed.

"I – I never thought of it. I guess I'm not fit enough yet, though; and I dare say that by the time I am I'll be too old anyway" he shrugged "But that's life. You never miss what you never had: and before my accident I was certainly too….immature."

"Pity" said K'star. "I've always thought it might be nice to have some steadier older chaps rather than all still half children to be blooded….maybe an exception could be made; talk to me when you're better, huh, and I'll put in a good word. N'ton's fairly flexible. Hurry now, or you'll not get a good place" he added as more dragons started arriving.

Kit took Horgey of necessity to a place at the coveted front of the tiers, grinning at the muttered imprecations of those of higher Rank than a Journeyman who could scarcely ask a chair-bound cripple to go up the steps! Her parents, as some of the most socially senior also had a place at the bottom: and Lord Groghe who recognised T'rin's friend and waved cordially as Kitiara brought the wheeled chair close to her parents, who smiled a warm welcome.

Teefer and Kiarna moved along the seats to be next to their daughter and Horgey; Groghe was chatting with N'ton.

Soon the candidates were coming out onto the sands, wincing a little and shifting from foot to foot as the heat struck up uncomfortably into bare feet.

"There's Teffie!" Kit said in a stage whisper. Pointing to one of the girls in their longer tunics. Teffie did not notice her sister or parents; she looked scared stiff. As this was the normal expression for any candidate however did not worry.

"She's scared!" whispered Kit "Oh dear, a Queen won't like that! Perhaps she should not be here.."

"They're all scared" said Horgey comfortingly. "If the Weyrlingmaster has done his job well, it's half because they're aware of their responsibility if they do Impress; and the rest is the fear that they won't, and will disappoint kin."

"Is that it?" asked Teefer.

Horgey nodded.

"I've worked with the Weyrlingmaster at High Reaches" he said "- Trin's father – co-ordinating ordinary lessons with the specialist ones…I've picked up a lot, even though I've only seen one hatching. I suppose it's Harper habit to store up information! Pity D're isn't here" he added thoughtfully "Or we could clean up betting on the colours; he can see them through the shell" he explained. "Look! There goes the Queen egg!"

The adult Queen – Horgey did not know the names of the Queens at Fort – hissed menacingly as the girls approached her daughter's hatching shell. Some were plainly terrified of the big dragon and hung back.

"THEY shouldn't even be here" grunted Horgey. "See? Your Teffie's got the guts to go forward. Reckon if she don't Impress here it's because her dragon's not shelled yet."

The little Queen shook herself loose of shards with a mighty heave and flopped forward creeling with hunger and the need for companionship. One girl moved forward and was batted aside by a contemptuous wing; Teffie stepped up too, swallowing hard; and was ignored.

The face of one of the girls erupted into a big soppy grin.

"Oh of COURSE we'll find you something to eat darling!" she cried, wrapping her arms round the golden neck.

"Aw….shards" said Kitiara, scrubbing tears off her face with the back of her hand like a boy.

Horgey leaned over to kiss her cheek.

"She can always come to High Reaches for a Green you know – if she likes" he said. "Reckon any woman in your family has what it takes."

"Thanks" said Kit. "When she's recovered from the disappointment, we'll have to suggest it."

Other dragonets were busy hatching all around, creeling and crying their ways into the arms of their various life partners, and stumbling off together bemused and ungainly.

Suddenly a little wedge shaped Blue head appeared at the rail behind which they sat.

_"Where are you?"_ Asked Brieth wistfully.

_**"But – you can't want ME!"**_ objected Horgey

_"Yes I do. Can we get something to eat now?"_

Horgey felt a gnawing wave of ravenous hunger and stumbled clumsily to his feet, his little green firelizard piping enthusiastically.

"Sit down, I'll push you dear" said Kit. "What's his name?"

"Brieth…"

"Brieth, I have to bring H'gey round to the steps; follow us along, it isn't far" said Kit, touching the blue muzzle apologetically.

Brieth obediently stumbled to where the barrier stopped and H'gey could enfold him properly in his arms. His face was wet!

Kitiara pushed the chair slowly, one arm out to help H'gey support Brieth.

K'nebel the Weyrlingmaster and N'ton gazed at the newly Impressed pair with something close to horror. Kitiara grabbed meat from the bowl the Weyrlingmaster held.

"Not too much at once" said H'gey "He mustn't gorge, and he has to get the idea of using teeth….it must be steady, like firelizards, and no more than his belly can take."

"You've been a candidate elsewhere?" asked K'nebel sharply.

H'gey shook his head.

"No, sir, I belong to the Harperweyr of High Reaches; I've helped R'gar the Weyrlingmaster there."

K'nebel grunted something about at least having picked up something.

"But – but it's insanity!" said N'ton half indignantly "Son, how can a cripple fight Thread?"

H'gey's face tightened.

"If it's all the same to you, Weyrleader, I should like to transfer to High Reaches as soon as Brieth's had a night's sleep; there's the infrastructure there in place that will permit me to fight Thread even if I do NOT continue to improve physically from my injuries. As I fully anticipate being a sight more mobile than this in the fourteen months before I'll be carrying firestone and going _Between_ I should not think there's going to be a problem; but I'll not stay where I'm going to be labelled as one."

"But how do you intend to care for him in the meantime?" asked N'ton. H'gey thought there was more genuine distress there than scorn; but his sharp ears were picking up the same comment made in a scoffing tone from other Riders. He flushed and counted to ten.

"I obviously cannot care for him – alone. Ah yes, Kit, the oil, please…" he paused to rub oil into the sudden itch that distracted Brieth. "Of course, as Fort lacks the facilities available at High Reaches to deal with such little hitches, I think perhaps it would be better if we could presently be lifted directly to the Harper Hall pending our transfer, where there's a band of willing – and knowledgeable – apprentices who can help me; apprentices who have cared for the dragons of casualties in the Healer Hall before. And, Weyrleader, I'd rather trust to their good offices than remain here where, judging by the whispers there are those who I fully believe would take a perverse pleasure in leaving me to myself and watching me fail. And seeing Brieth go _Between_ for neglect that I may be punished for having the temerity to have a crippled body by being crippled mentally too. And deny if you can, sir, that there's not those here that feel that way!"

N'ton gulped.

"How dare you speak to me that way, Blue Rider?"

"Blue Rider is it when you want to exert authority when you've already addressed me as 'cripple'?" said H'gey angrily. "I dare because your words show that you plainly regret the concept of me being one of YOUR riders. No more, Kit, he's had enough. T'bor is proud of ALL his riders. And shouting how dare you, not denying my accusation answers me the degree of accuracy of it. I'm not an adolescent boy you can browbeat, Weyrleader, I'm a Journeyman and I've my own Weyr family behind me."

"And his in-laws too" said Teefer, who had found them. "This young man is betrothed to our daughter; I suppose you'll be transferring to the Harperweyr too my dear, and standing for a Green dragon?"

"How DID you know we were betrothed, daddy?" gasped Kit. "Yes, I shall transfer if I've your blessing."

Teefer smiled

"More than weyrfolk can logicate – at least about their nearest and dearest" he said. "N'ton, under the circumstances, don't you think it better for H'gey and Brieth to go temporarily to the Harper Hall?"

N'ton swallowed.

"Perhaps it might, Lord Teefer" he said. "Though dragons belong in a weyr…"

Teefer smiled sweetly.

"I believe Master Robinton said, when Jaxom Impressed Ruth, a weyr is where a dragon is" he said.

With such logic N'to could not argue.

In truth he did not want to argue; he felt more sympathy than he had shown to the newly Impressed pair, but had been betrayed by shock and dismay, and a fear of how it would reflect on the Weyr and his leadership in these still difficult times, and the influence of T'ron not entirely eradicated. He laid a hand on H'gey's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, lad" he said "I was …. taken aback."

"You weren't the only one" said H'gey dryly. "Can we be lifted out please? Brieth is three parts asleep and I'm having trouble fighting the feeling myself."

"I'd have said you were doing remarkably well myself" said N'ton.

H'gey managed a lazy grin.

"You know what they say about Harpers – able to function even after half a case of Benden Red and an all night game of Dragon Poker."

"From the man who rarely drinks and never gambles" said Kit. "Hello grandfather, isn't it splendid?"

"Ha! Hrm! Well done young H'gey, congratulations, what?" said Lord Groghe. "Had to commiserate with Teffie, couldn't come straight off, left her with her mother. Damned inconvenient for you, eh, Kit? Going to transfer to High Reaches are you so she can have a Green for your little chap to fly?" he dug H'gey in the ribs.

"That's the general idea, sir" said H'gey "And we're going back to the Harper Hall: I've unfinished duties there, you know."

"Hah! Dedicated lad! Quite right too!" said Groghe, and stumped off.

N'ton raised an eyebrow.

"Saving my face?"

"Hold and Weyr don't quarrel; weyr and weyr don't quarrel. Craft and weyr don't quarrel. End of" said H'gey shortly.

N'ton beckoned K'star over; the Green rider grinned all over his face.

"I SAID you should stand as a candidate, Journeyman" he said.

N'ton appeared to be having trouble with something in his throat.

"Carry H'gey and Brieth to the Harper Hall please K'star" said N'ton. "M'ander and Relth can help you."

K'star blinked.

"Uh….yes, Weyrleader" he said, whispering to H'gey as the Weyrleader turned away "Why? Aren't you joining us here?"

H'gey yawned again.

"Sorry….Brieth's so tired..."

Kit answered for him.

"Nobody wants a cripple here" she said "And we'll be going to High Reaches where nobody gives a fardling shard providing you do your best."

K'star looked enlightened.

"Oh, right….yes, there are a few…" he said. "Well, High Reaches has a good reputation, or one for being crazy, depending on who you talk to. Oh, M'ander" as a Blue Rider came up "We're taking H'gey and Brieth to the Harper Hall so they can go on to High Reaches to avoid any….incidents."

M'ander regarded H'gey coolly; then intercepted a look between him and Kit, as she reached out to touch H'gey's hand; and relaxed.

"Yes, we've thought of asking for a transfer ourselves" he said.

"You'd be welcome, I reckon" said H'gey, correctly interpreting incipient jealousy put aside. "We like monogamous couples there; sluts are discouraged."

M'ander grinned.

"I like your direct way. Are you then from High Reaches and Impressed here by accident?"

"It's a long story" said H'gey "And I'm tired – come down tomorrow, huh, and you can listen to the history, and I'll give you a good harper-style yarn. And you can help me oil him too, if you're feeling kind enough!"

M'ander laughed.

"We shall!" he promised.

To say that the Masterharper was taken aback to have his journeyman returned complete with dragonet was an understatement. However, he knew enough about the effects of hatching to ask no questions! Brieth was accommodated temporarily in the teaching room of H'gey's cot, being small enough still to fit through the wide door. H'gey was lifted onto the bed by Kit and Danel: and he and Brieth were both asleep and snoring within minutes.

"'H'gey'" said Danel thoughtfully. "Not Horgey any more. That'll be some looking after."

"That's right Danel" said Kit, kindly. "We'll all help. I'll tell the other apprentices. And Silvina" she added hastily, recalling that the headwoman would need to know to find enough meat for Brieth!

After running around informing people who needed informing – and refusing to go into details until she had more time – Kitiara reported to the Masterharper.

He gave her a comical smile as she entered his room.

"Only the people of High Reaches could manage that. Hmmm? You'd have thought he'd have the decency to Impress at the last High Reaches hatching!" he quipped.

"As though he had anything to do with it!" began Kit angrily before she realised the Masterharper was teasing. She collapsed into a chair laughing weakly.

"You wouldn't believe it in a ballad, now, would you?" she said, still chuckling. "His face! Adoration and horror mixed! Still, it solves a few potential problems."

"Hmm?"

"If I Impress, Brieth can fly my Green. If I don't, he's likely to be inhibiting Brieth so he won't be likely to wake up with a strange girl, so there shouldn't be any issues. And even if he does, it's less….intrusive for a man anyway and I guess I could handle that better than if I woke up with a random Rider. I confess I was a little worried that if I went with him and DID Impress, I'd have trouble coping with my dragon's appetites and not being able to be with H'gey, only now I could, so that's all right!" she grinned.

"Ah, the optimism of the young. And the angst" murmured Robinton. "Things do have a way of sorting themselves out. Especially if dragons are involved. What actually happened?"

Kitiara gave a full account; including H'gey's un-contradicted fears and accusations. Robinton sighed.

"N'ton is a good man" he said "A very good man. But there are always some rotten apples….and the worst and most rotten apples of all are the ones who convince themselves that they are actually acting in the public good."

Kitiara nodded.

"I guess I can see that….sir, may I have time off to go see my sister? She's a disappointed candidate, and I meant to go hug her but then there was all that drama… I did warn Silvina she'd need more meat, I thought of that."

Robinton nodded.

"Of course; off you run, my child. I'm impressed you got as far as warning Silvina; that was well done. As to the rest, leave it all in my hands; I'll go and talk to T'bor personally."

Kitiara grinned and ran off, much relieved!


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Teffie was a little inclined to be a bit snippy that her sister has abandoned her woes for some Harper – her mother had stayed to cuddle and comfort her while her father had gone to see if H'gey had required any moral or other support – but she was mollified to find out that Kitiara and H'gey had been discussing her potential Impression of a Green at High Reaches Weyr at the instant before he Impressed. She subjected Kit to a far more searching grilling about H'gey than either of their parents had done, claiming a sister's right to look out for her younger sis!

Kitiara had the tact to forbear to throw up Teffie's having left her in a ditch, which event had ultimately led to Kit's enrolment as an apprentice in the first place; she felt she was turns older than Teffie in responsibility, having a craft! It seemed to help Teffie to have something to interest her besides her disappointment, however, so Kit sighed inwardly and answered her questions with all the best Harpercraft evasion she had at her command.

It satisfied Teffie, anyway; she came away with the impression that H''gey was a weyrbred journeyman having his craft status confirmed. Teffie was far more concerned about Birth and Status than Kit, but at least felt that being Weyrbred equated to being of the Blood!

Robinton requested a dragonflight to High Reaches to speak to T'bor, who promptly broke out his best Benden Red in honour of the Masterharper and because it was a good excuse.

"Ahhh….a Gorton seventeen" said the Masterharper "A vintage year."

T'bor grinned.

"It's what you get for having F'lar's daughter around" he said "She's very good at wheedling. Is there a problem, Masterharper?"

"Not a PROBLEM, Weyrleader T'bor" said Robinton "No, not REALLY an problem….let me tell you about it from the beginning."

Master Robinton explained how Journeyman Horgey had discussed with him his desire to return to teaching duties at High Reaches, hopefully bringing a Harpercraft candidate with him too; but that, well, there'd be another passenger as he put it.

"And who would that be, Master Robinton, and why do you mention him or her in such a tone?" asked T'bor warily, wondering what weird or wonderful protégé Horgey had picked up.

"His dragonet Brieth" said the Masterharper.

Only respect for the vintage prevented T'bor from coughing out the mouthful of wine he had just taken. As it was, he turned purple and choked gently for a moment or two.

"You Harpers" he said, dryly, when he could speak again "Have impeccable timing. In this case impeccably bad" he took another swig to soothe his throat after the coughing fit.

Robinton grinned.

"Sometimes it's hard to resist" he said. "I have to say, I had a shock when a dragonet was brought out of Fort Weyr to be housed in the Hall."

T'bor's eyes narrowed.

"Why? Why brought out? What's wrong?"

Robinton gave him a sideways look.

"Promise me faithfully you won't go and say or do anything rash to interfere with interweyr relations?"

"I'm starting not to like the sound of this" said T'bor dangerously.

"Your promise."

"Very well. In the interests of Pern – and more, as a favour to YOU, Masterharper – I promise to avoid doing anything rash and without due consideration. Will that do?"

Robinton nodded.

"It runs like this: N'ton could not guarantee the behaviour of some of his Riders towards a er, cripple" he said bluntly. "It was decided for Brieth's and H'gey's sakes that they should weyr in the Harper Hall for a while. H'gey was, I gather, quite forceful. I gather he looks on you as a model Weyrleader and gets snippy if he feels others don't live up to that" he grinned.

T'bor rarely swore, but it took him some two minutes to run out of expletives this time!

"I'd like to see the dragonet through his first sevenday before taking him _Between_" he said abruptly. "Is that too inconvenient?"

Robinton shook his head.

"As long as is necessary" he said "The Harper Hall is honoured to accommodate any dragonrider any time. But perhaps at your earliest convenience will avoid too much embarrassment all round. H'gey informed Lord Groghe that he had duties in the Hall that he wished to see completed, and it is a good official reason, that his sense of duty will not permit him to leave until he has cleared every matter before him…. A sevenday should be sufficient for him to wrap up all the ends of the sorting out he has been doing with my problem pupils. He seems to have caught it from T'rin."

T'bor managed a thin smile.

"Who caught it from T'lan…it's a High Reaches feature, interfering. And quite right that he should not shirk his duties to Hall."

"Quite; and he could hardly predict, after all, that he would Impress from the tiers, and so have his affairs in order before the hatching, could he?"

T'bor's eyes lit up with unholy glee.

"Of course, it had not sunk in…he Impressed in the tiers! Stupid of me, he'd have let us known if he'd been a candidate, and he'd have done that with us anyway….well, N'ton and his people can scarcely complain any more about OUR tier Impressions!" he crowed. "Well. I'll keep it all very quiet – outside of this Weyr, anyhow; and I'll only apprise the truly discreet of the true circumstances. Well, well, I liked the lad more than I was expecting, and the dragons always know!"

Robinton grinned.

"And his disabilities trouble you not one whit" he said.

T'bor snorted.

"We've hoists. His arms are strong. And I hear he's getting stronger in the legs too. Where's the problem? Besides, minor problems like that are made to be overcome."

Robinton smiled as he savoured the last of his glass of wine.

He liked the people of High Reaches.

When H'gey woke to the promptings of Brieth's hunger, he found apprentices and journeymen coming in with meat already!

"Vaek spent the night and the moment Brieth started shifting he ran for us to get meat" explained Ferry. "those of us with firelizards know some of what to expect, so here we are!"

Brieth broadcast his thanks, startling the boys, and bringing tears of emotion to more than one pair of eyes – for to be spoken to by a dragon, even a baby one, was an honour!

"He's awful big already, but I wasn't going to let that scare me!" boasted Vaek, who in truth had been terrified of sleeping the night with a dragon, but was too stubborn not to put his name in to be drawn with the others! Having been spoken to by the little dragon, his fears were subsiding – for Brieth was a person, just a rather large one!

After feeding the little dragon, it was time to oil him; and H'gey was certainly glad of help with that! He could stand, leaning on Brieth, to oil him, and the joy of being with such a friend was beyond belief! He would never be lonely again, never!

Asrina's bout of hysterics when the Ranking girls turned up to find a dragon in their classroom – H'gey and Kitiara had both clean forgotten them – was too funny for Kitiara, though H'gey tried hard not to laugh, as his love rolled around on the floor in whoops of mirth over the way Asrina seemed to take it as a personal slight!

Brieth was faintly offended. The girls had no need to be afraid of him; and so he told them.

Tireena fainted and Asrina fled, weeping.

Varalie promptly mucked in with the rest of the apprentices; and H'gey thought it would do her no harm at all to discover that commons were people too! She was of an age with Gavel and Kit and the boys from Kit's dormitory and he saw no reason the girl should not learn to have a little fun!

Of course, Asrina complained to the Masterharper that there was a dragon in her teaching room.

Robinton listened impassively; and pointed out that dragons were generally to be found near to those who just Impressed them. She surely knew, he said, that dragons were never dangerous to people once hatching was over; and where else did she expect Journeyman Blue Rider H'gey's dragon to weyr anyway, since he felt his duty to people like HER so deeply that he stayed temporarily out of the Weyr?

Asrina was not pleased; but how could she argue with a Harper who seemed to think it utterly normal to find a dragon asleep between the desks?

She could not know that at the Harperweyr it WAS completely normal to find a dragonet asleep between the desks; or even joining in the singing for that matter!

H'gey utilised the time while Brieth slept – which was a great deal – to put matters in order, finish his harp – he had already finished his twelve string gitar – and make sure that Gavel was getting on well with the other boys. He knew he would, in the Weyr, be learning such varied things as basic dragonhealing, simple formations and the construction and care of fighting straps; and he was glad to have a Harper-trained memory that would enable him to catch up on such practical basics. It was amazing how much of R'gar's teaching came back to him from what he had idly overheard when sitting outside in his wheeled chair over the summer and early autumn, when the Weyrlingmaster was speaking to the most recently Impressed, and to candidates. That the girls discussed their dragon care lessons in the Harperweyr Hall was also useful, for he could recall a lot of the discussion between I'linne and C'lara! Consequently, when N'ton visited after a couple of days, expecting to find a tail-thickened dull-skinned dragonet, he found as well cared for a creature as any currently in the Weyr; and better than some.

H'gey pulled himself to his feet.

"Weyrleader N'ton" he inclined his head. "I'm sorry I was – forthright – right after Impression. It was an – emotional – time."

N'ton nodded.

"Understood" he said, appreciating the apology. "Just looked in to see how Brieth was; he's still under my overall care until you move north."

"He's spoiled rotten" said H'gey cheerfully. "He has a team of apprentices vying for good marks in class to be picked as the ones to help with him. He's the best discipline aid I've ever had."

N'ton grinned.

"I bet" he said. "So you're still teaching then?" he was surprised.

"A little desultorily…his needs ARE demanding. But informal lessons whilst bathing an oiling him go in very well" said H'gey. "We wrote a little carillon – it goes:

_"What shall we do with a thickened tail_

_ Mix up the senna in a pail_

_ Then spoon it in to force it out_

_ And he'll be better without a doubt!"_ he sang.*

The song ran down the octave in the first two lines, then in thirds in the last two lines. N'ton blinked.

"Um…could you write that out for me?" he asked "And any other teaching songs you come up with for weyrlings? Please?"

H'gey smiled.

"It'll be a pleasure, Weyrleader. I've already made copies for R'gar, of course: these boys do deserve recognition for their concerted efforts. T'rin has a few that we use in the Reaches: I'll ask him to do you some copies if you'd like. We sing a lot there."

"Er, quite; thank you!" said N'ton. He was pleasantly surprised!

Perhaps he should take the effort to actually talk to T'bor properly sometime.

It was L'gal who came to collect H'gey, Brieth and Kitiara. He brought with him a passenger too; T'arla's cousin Meeri, who had been preparing for an apprenticeship during the time H'gey had been gone. H'gey was in some ways sad to be leaving the Harper Hall; but he was also glad to be going home! And for the first time in his life there was somewhere to truly think of as home!

"Don't forget your winter woollies" warned L'gal. "It may be thinking about being spring down here in the soft south, but up in the High Reaches it's still cold enough to freeze your wotsits off!"

H'gey appreciated the warning. It was easy to forget! And Kit had never seen a northern winter. Nor, H'gey reminded himself, had he – not really! It had been the beginning of winter when he had left, and it was almost the end of winter as he returned!

Most of the Harper Hall turned out to bid its unexpectedly resident dragonrider farewell; and Lord Teefer and Lady Kiarna came up with Teffie too. Teffie had not decided yet if she wanted to try for a Green egg; so she would not accompany them this time; but she wished her little sister all the best!

The younger apprentices looked pretty forlorn; more, H'gey suspected, over losing their dragon friend and well disrupted lessons than over fondness for their teacher! In this he was mistaken; for his class of eight slow learners really appreciated his gentler touch and would miss his ability to put a lesson into different words if they could not understand something, for in this ability he actually surpassed T'rin!

Kit sniffed hard.

"Cold wind" she said.

H'gey did not mention that the day was flat calm.

"Dust blowing about too" he agreed, surreptitiously mopping his own eyes.

Solpeth finally took off with the powerful thrust of the back legs and single downstroke that was all that was needed to launch a Bronze Dragon into the air; he cradled Brieth in his front paws, H'gey strapped on his back this time in his own chair, adapted for the straps originally designed for Sh'rilla, and the modification quickly added by L'gal, after instruction by H'llon!

And then they were _Between_, three heartbeats of utter cold and blackness.

And out above the Seven Spindles, black against the snow; and coming in to land in the Bowl with the entire Harperweyr and most of the logicators there waiting to cheer them home, and greet them with a canon of welcome that was so plainly from the pen of T'rin that H'gey wept again with emotion!

_* A/N the tune is much as is sung to the nursery song 'Upon Paul's steeple stands a tree'_

**The End of Part 1**

**Part 2 'Kitiara and the Harperweyr' will be posted as a separate story starting tomorrow as if it were the next chapter which in a way it is.  
**


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